Poems (Proctor)/Prayers for the Dead
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PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD.
Nay! I will pray for them until I go
To their far realm beyond the strait of death!
For, past the deeps and all the winds that blow,
Somewhere within God's silences I know
My yearning heart, my prayers with sobbing breath,
Will find and bring them gladness! Drear and slow
Would dawn my days, were they not followed so
With perfect love that never varyeth!
Does the fond wife, when mists hide wave and lea,
Forget her fisher's safety to implore,
Till the lost bark that holds her joy in fee,
Blithe, through the billows, comes again to shore?—
Our vanished ones but sail a vaster sea,
And there, as here, God listens evermore.
To their far realm beyond the strait of death!
For, past the deeps and all the winds that blow,
Somewhere within God's silences I know
My yearning heart, my prayers with sobbing breath,
Will find and bring them gladness! Drear and slow
Would dawn my days, were they not followed so
With perfect love that never varyeth!
Does the fond wife, when mists hide wave and lea,
Forget her fisher's safety to implore,
Till the lost bark that holds her joy in fee,
Blithe, through the billows, comes again to shore?—
Our vanished ones but sail a vaster sea,
And there, as here, God listens evermore.