The Litany

O sweet, most sweet and penitential sound!
In tides of chaste, austere old music setting
O'er all those kneelers' hearts, at penance found,
Weary with strife and unwise knowledge-getting.

O sweet, most sweet and penitential sound!
Each low response, with organ notes attended,
Loosens some link of sin which sadly bound
Souls where the Church and world were too much
blended.

O sweet, most sweet and penitential sound!
Circling the Altar and the pillars grasping,
Breathing a soul into the marble ground,
Where knees are bending and mute hands are clasping!

O sweet, most sweet and penitential sound!
O prayer most dear, most dread, and full of Heaven!
Pleading with saints to get our souls unbound,
And have our sins and our soft lives forgiven.

O sweet, most sweet and penitential sound!
Thy cadence thrills on me in times of sinning;
Thy grieving fall hath oft my soul unbound,
Its thoughts and dreams to calmer currents winning.

O sweet, most sweet and penitential sound!
O rite most dear! that in weak hours of vaunting,
Languors of earthly love, or strivings crowned,
Still keeps my heart a shrine with plaintive haunting.