Poems (Forrest)/The prayer

by Mabel Forrest

THE PRAYER

Measuring ribbons across a board,
 Piling figures on rigid page,
 Merging youth into bloodless age:
. . . Give us time for our dreams, O Lord!

Time for the mirroring rush on rush,
 In waters greener than Chinese jade;
 Time for a wing in a mottled glade
Of light and shadow and fragrant hush.

Time for a mountain, tall and blue,
 Everlastings along the sward:
 Give us leisure to dream, dear Lord,
Lest we pay no tithe of our lives to you.

Stitching, baking, and scrubbing floors,
 Rocking a fretful babe to rest:
 Lend us visions of gardens blest
Through the easy hinges of Fancy's doors.

Washing dishes and mending socks,
 Bending over the ironing board:
 . . . With spice and honeys of memory stored
May thought-ships come to their twilight docks

In the rasp of a small suburban home
 Where the dull day ends as the day began:
 . . .As rich as the hues of a mousmee's fan
May the waft of colour on thought-winds come.

In the ward where the sick man lies, too still,
 And hears the moan of the fever case:
 . . . Lord bring the dream to that pallid place,
A wild bird's song on an April hill;

With blaze of blossom for closing eyes,
 With the sweet of rain on a dusty tree,
 The dance of poppies beside the sea:
A lazy moon in October skies. . .

By broken windows where spiders swing
 O'er the filthy lane, make the vision glow,
 To shallow porches where roses grow
And the gauze of the gloaming tastes of spring.

Set the soul ajar that the dreams may flit
 Gold butterflies o'er our sombre scheme:
 Be we coining money or losing it. . .
Lord, make us never too wise to dream!