Poems (Proctor)/A Prayer
For works with similar titles, see A Prayer.
A PRAYER.
Let me not die, O Lord, till I have doneSome deed to bless the world wherein I dwell!Spoken some word that when I leave the sunIn other hearts the tide of life shall swell,And, like a clarion, call to high emprise,Though hushed for aye my voice and closed my eyes!
For I have been so glad, thy blue below,That earth and air kept carnival with me;From banks of rose the winds that softest blowBore my light bark across a halcyon sea;And the swift year through all its days and nightsBlent fairest hopes with dear, fulfilled delights.
And I have swept into such dread abysms,Tossed with such tides on sorrow's wintry main,That neither altar-fires nor holy chrismsCould light my soul or bring a balm for pain;But, back from every sheltering harbor blown,Through the great darkness I have groped alone.
And shall I pass, and all this life of mineSink voiceless, fruitless, in oblivion's wells?—I who have drained earth's rue and quaffed its wine,Whose joys have touched the heavens, whose griefs the hells—Die as the wind upon some alien shoreThat sings and sighs, then falls to wake no more?