Saint Thomas Aquinas
by R. Metcalfe
O intellect sublime! Sounding the deeps
Of human science, compassing divine;
Whereunto shall we liken thee? To sweeps
Of mountain moorland, purpling line on line—
Distance to greater distance, where combine
The hills and heaven? Or to that mount of stone,
Whose shadowy gloom leads by gradations fine
To peaks and spires of light—thine own Cologne?
Yet seemest thou most like that ageless dome
Not reared for puny time, nor wrought in haste,
Catholic—for all tongues and nations made—
Symbol of unity, the Faith of Rome,
Grandly the world embracing, and embraced
By that pellucid heaven without a shade.
I know nothing at all about R. Metcalfe, beyond the fact that this comes from his 1901 work, Passion Sonnets and Other Verses; it is the second in a series on Dominican themes.
The feast of St. Thomas, of course, is tomorrow, the 28th.
