Take him all in all, it will be long ere we look upon his like again
... he was a power felt and acknowledged by the nation".
The words almost fit. Substitute 'globe' for 'nation' and you can begin to write a tribute. One of the greatest moral voices in 2,000 years has passed from our world. "A hero for the ages," as US President George W Bush put it.
Not surprisingly, many of us feel personally bereaved. Perhaps that was the most remarkable of his gifts. His followers felt loved by him. And in recent days, as the world woke up to what it had lost, that feeling seemed to spread.
Some people felt sad that he never got his wish to pay that return visit to Ireland. Others were relieved. There had been so many claims that the 1979 visit made no lasting impression, other than to mark the beginning of secular Ireland, that people thought another visit would be a damp squib.
But in a strange way, he did return in the end, bringing his message of faith and love to the Irish once more.
The media helped it happen. The depth of respect they showed during his final heroic days of sickness and eventual death was impressive.
Differences of opinion were put aside to focus on his holiness, insight, consistency and charisma. In doing so, journalists took an important step in restoring the dialogue between church and society, between those who set the tone of our public discussions and those who have so often felt excluded from them. Irish Catholicism was allowed to breathe with more freedom than has been the case for a long time.
For example, it was just straightforward good journalism to get Bishop John Magee's personal memories of John Paul II last weekend.
But this enabled the bishop to share an important story. He told how the Pope, whenever he returned from one of his triumphant encounters with crowds, used to retire to pray immediately. Wojtyla gave it all back, laying down the adulation of the world to put himself totally at the service of the one he loved.
We heard other memorable comments. A man from Mayo told RTÉ's Jim Fahy in Knock last Sunday morning that he was "proud to be a Catholic". At the end of what has been a terrible decade for the Irish Catholic Church, there was something liberating about that statement.
From Rome we heard the voice of an Irishman who described himself as not particularly religious. But he was thinking again, he said, so impressed was he by the faith and devotion of thousands of young people gathered in St Peter's Square.
There were ticker tape stories of faith and conversion, and tributes from other religions, scrolling across Sky News and other channels.
Leading public figures found the ability to talk about faith. And a day of mourning didn't matter so much, the Polish Ambassador told us, since that was only about externals. People might pay a better tribute to Karol Wojtyla by reading some of his writings, he felt.
It would be wrong to presume too much on what this moment means for Catholicism in Ireland and the western world. A huge increase in the expression of faith won't happen overnight. But that's not how societies are transformed anyway. What is undeniable is that the search for faith and values is now underway in quarters where that was once less likely. And much of that is down to Karol Wojtyla. As the London Times put it: "He made the question of God inescapable."
To observe that this Pope failed to convince many people about some of the truths of his faith, and that the western world became more secularised during his pontificate, is to miss the point. John Paul took over at a time when the church was trembling in the face of faithlessness and the new challenges posed by scientific advance.
But he came to embody the timeless credibility of the Catholic Church even to those who couldn't understand, or wouldn't accept, its teaching. He made the Catholic Church the most obvious and vivid expression of the unity of the human race.
THAT is why those who accuse him of having over-centralised power in the Vatican misunderstand both the way the church was created and the challenges of the times. The Bishop of Rome is the unifying figure of the Church and this allows it to be the conscience of a world where we not only know what is going on in the next diocese, but also what's happening in the next continent.
Consistency is more vital than ever. For example, the failure of Terri Schiavo's local bishop to pronounce on the immorality of what was being done to her was a very serious affair, but things would have been very much worse if there wasn't a universal Catholic teaching against which his behaviour could be measured. Another example: some years ago, the Vatican decided that it would make the final call on how to proceed with church investigations into abuses of canon law, including sexual abuse cases. This can be seen as a response to the scandal caused by the inconsistency of various dioceses in their handling of abuse cases.
John Paul left many, as yet unopened, gifts to the Church. He laid the philosophical groundwork which will enable the church to face future challenges, for example his 'theology of the body' may help reverse the tide of unbelief around the Catholic teachings on sex and relationships.
Ever a believer in the transforming power of culture, he inspired a generation of younger people to rebuild Christian culture in the west. They are perhaps harder to notice in Ireland because of our recent drift from the pews, but you find them in the new lay movements of which he was so fond. You hear them debating right-to-life issues in a self-confident and coherent way on college campuses. When the Irish hierarchy invites these young people to participate in a more structured evangelisation of their contemporaries, interesting things may happen.
This Pope had a great love for his fellow human beings. He saw humankind as God's most cherished creation and that drove his passion for human rights and freedoms at a global level. It also informed his behaviour in private.
On one occasion, a bishop whom he invited to lunch was unavoidably delayed when he met one of his priests who had fallen by the wayside - begging near St Peter's Square. "Why didn't you bring him, too?" the Pope later asked when the delay was explained.
The beggar-priest was sent for. The Pope heard his confession and, in a gesture of humility and solidarity, asked the priest to hear his. Belief in human potential was what Wojtyla was all about.
"Take him all in all, it will be long ere we look upon his like again," the Congress said of Lincoln. "Whereas he is dead; but the days of his pilgrimage, although in troublesome times, were full of honour, love and troops of friends. The nation mourns. Peace be upon him."
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