The Universal Prayer

Come, child, to prayer; the busy day is done,A golden star gleams through the dusk of night;The hills are trembling in the rising mist,The rumbling wain looms dim upon the sight;All things wend home to rest; the roadside treesShake off their dust, stirred by the evening breeze.

The sparkling stars gush forth in sudden blaze,As twilight open flings the doors of night;The fringe of carmine narrows in the west,The rippling waves are tipped with silver light;The bush, the path--all blend in one dull gray;The doubtful traveller gropes his anxious way.

Oh, day! with toil, with wrong, with hatred rife;Oh, blessed night! with sober calmness sweet,The sad winds moaning through the ruined tower,The age-worn hind, the sheep's sad broken bleat--All nature groans opprest with toil and care,And wearied craves for rest, and love, and prayer.

At eve the babes with angels converse hold,While we to our strange pleasures wend our way,Each with its little face upraised to heaven,With folded hands, barefoot kneels down to pray,At selfsame hour with selfsame words they callOn God, the common Father of them all.

And then they sleep, and golden dreams anon,Born as the busy day's last murmurs die,In swarms tumultuous flitting through the gloomTheir breathing lips and golden locks descry.And as the bees o'er bright flowers joyous roam,Around their curtained cradles clustering come.

Oh, prayer of childhood! simple, innocent;Oh, infant slumbers! peaceful, pure, and light;Oh, happy worship! ever gay with smiles,Meet prelude to the harmonies of night;As birds beneath the wing enfold their head,Nestled in prayer the infant seeks its bed.

To prayer, my child! and O, be thy first prayerFor her who, many nights, with anxious care,Rocked thy first cradle; who took thy infant soulFrom heaven and gave it to the world; then rifeWith love, still drank herself the gall of life,And left for thy young lips the honeyed bowl.

And then--I need it more--then pray for me!For she is gentle, artless, true like thee;--She has a guileless heart, brow placid still;Pity she has for all, envy for none;Gentle and wise, she patiently lives on;And she endures, nor knows who does the ill.

In culling flowers, her novice hand has ne'erTouched e'en the outer rind of vice; no snareWith smiling show has lured her steps aside:On her the past has left no staining mark;Nor knows she aught of those bad thoughts which, darkLike shade on waters, o'er the spirit glide.

She knows not--nor mayest thou--the miseriesIn which our spirits mingle: vanities,Remorse, soul-gnawing cares, Pleasure's false show:Passions which float upon the heart like foam,Bitter remembrances which o'er us come,And Shame's red spot spread sudden o'er the brow.

I know life better! when thou'rt older grownI'll tell thee--it is needful to be known--Of the pursuit of wealth--art, power; the cost.That it is folly, nothingness: that shameFor glory is oft thrown us in the gameOf Fortune; chances where the soul is lost.

The soul will change. Although of everythingThe cause and end be clear, yet wilderingWe roam through life (of vice and error full).We wander as we go; we feel the loadOf doubt; and to the briars upon the roadMan leaves his virtue, as the sheep its wool.

Then go, go pray for me! And as the prayerGushes in words, be this the form they bear:--"Lord, Lord, our Father! God, my prayer attend;Pardon! Thou art good! Pardon--Thou art great!"Let them go freely forth, fear not their fate!Where thy soul sends them, thitherward they tend.

There's nothing here below which does not findIts tendency. O'er plains the rivers wind,And reach the sea; the bee, by instinct driven,Finds out the honeyed flowers; the eagle fliesTo seek the sun; the vulture where death lies;The swallow to the spring; the prayer to Heaven!

And when thy voice is raised to God for me,I'm like the slave whom in the vale we seeSeated to rest, his heavy load laid by;I feel refreshed--the load of faults and woeWhich, groaning, I drag with me as I go,Thy wingèd prayer bears off rejoicingly!

Pray for thy father! that his dreams be brightWith visitings of angel forms of light,And his soul burn as incense flaming wide,Let thy pure breath all his dark sins efface,So that his heart be like that holy place,An altar pavement each eve purified!