Poems (Proctor)/A Prayer

by Edna Dean Proctor

For works with similar titles, see A Prayer.

A PRAYER.

Let me not die, O Lord, till I have done
Some deed to bless the world wherein I dwell!
Spoken some word that when I leave the sun
In 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 blow
Bore my light bark across a halcyon sea;
And the swift year through all its days and nights
Blent 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 chrisms
Could 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 mine
Sink 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 shore
That sings and sighs, then falls to wake no more?