A Pilgrim's Memory of St. Anthony of Egypt

Many years have come and passed Since before your smile in inner mountain fast Stepped my bare feet out on bare forest last, To that living unshod joy in your greeting past! Was it by flesh or faith that your face shone In brightness, to lift from skin to bone, In light against sin's darkness to atone, In radiance to live that life of love alone? Reminiscences of that New Eden contain Solitude's vestiges that join the strain Of my own existence dissipated but in refrain From those idols who, by Life's death, are slain. What tolling silences with thunder peel amid the interior cacophony unreal of my own thoughts to rekindle and to heal that longing to long too long neglected still? Is all the empty service that I halfway render Any more pleasing than what saving secrets engender In prayer, that power to conceive and not to hinder His surrendered love, so true and tender? Anthony of Egypt, in the battle of faith, you shine, Against all spiteful spirits, your own words still bind The discouraged believer in the Word to find Hope's new beginning and in love's discipline, a living sign.