Rosemary and Pansies/A Prayer for Light

by Bertram Dobell

A PRAYER FOR LIGHT

Father! our eyes are blind; we cannot see,
Though earnestly we seek, the path to Thee!

Through the blank darkness vainly do we grope,
And see no kindly light, no ray of hope!

Long, long the night has lasted: will the day
Never arise and chase the clouds away?

Father! our ears are deaf; we cannot hear
Even though a voice of doom is sounding near:

Fain would we hear its message—but in vain
Wt strive to catch the thunder-spoken strain:

Must we be deaf for ever; never hear
Thy voice proclaiming that relief is near?

Father! our tongues are tied; we cannot speak
Our heart-felt yearnings, howsoe'er we seek.

Our throats swell with the words we fain would say;
In murmurs hoarse and thick they die away.

When will our dumb and dark despair be o'er,
And like a rushing stream our fervent pray'rs outpour?

We cannot though we would believe in Thee;
How may Time's creatures know Eternity?

So straitly bound in time and space, how raise
Our lowly thoughts to sing Thy fitting praise?

Oh! give us light life's mysteries to explain;
Let our sad souls some certitude attain.

Doom us not ever thus to dwell in night;
We are Thy children—and art Thou not Light?

But oh! with no false dawn deceive our eyes;
With no kind rhetoric the truth disguise.

Reveal the truth—and we will bear it, though
It plunge us yet in deeper depths of woe!

When will the season of deliverance come,
And we no longer be blind, deaf, and dumb?

1875?