W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895.

The Gift of Tongues

John Henry Newman (1801–1890)

ONCE cast with men of language strange

And foreign-moulded creed,

I marked their random converse change,

And sacred themes succeed.

O how I coveted the gift

To thread their mingled throng

Of sounds, then high my witness lift!

But weakness chain’d my tongue.

Lord! has our dearth of faith and prayer

Lost us this power once given;

Or is it sent at seasons rare

And then flits back to heaven?