A Broken Prayer

Lord, my God, how longShall my poor heart pant for a boundless joy?How long, O mighty Spirit, shall I hearThe murmur of Truth's crystal waters slideFrom the deep caverns of their endless being,But my lips taste not, and the grosser airChoke each pure inspiration of thy will?

I am a denseness 'twixt me and the light;cannot round myself; my purest thought,Ere it is thought, hath caught the taint of earth,And mocked me with hard thoughts beyond my will.

I would be a windWhose smallest atom is a viewless wing,All busy with the pulsing life that throbsTo do thy bidding; yea, or the meanest thingThat has relation to a changeless truth,Could I but be instinct with thee--each thoughtThe lightning of a pure intelligence,And every act as the loud thunder-clapOf currents warring for a vacuum.

Lord, clothe me with thy truth as with a robe;Purge me with sorrow; I will bend my headAnd let the nations of thy waves pass over,Bathing me in thy consecrated strength;And let thy many-voiced and silver windsPass through my frame with their clear influence,O save me; I am blind; lo, thwarting shapesWall up the void before, and thrusting outLean arms of unshaped expectation, beckonDown to the night of all unholy thoughts.

Oh, when at midnight one of thy strong angelsStems back the waves of earthly influenceThat shape unsteady continents around me,And they draw off with the devouring gushOf exile billows that have found a home,Leaving me islanded on unseen points,Hanging 'twixt thee and chaos--I have seenUnholy shapes lop off my shining thoughts,And they have lent me leathern wings of fear,Of baffled pride and harrowing distrust;And Godhead, with its crown of many stars,Its pinnacles of flaming holiness,And voice of leaves in the green summer-time,Has seemed the shadowed image of a self!Then my soul blackened; and I rose to findAnd grasp my doom, and cleave the arching deepsOf desolation.

O Lord, my soul is a forgotten wellClad round with its own rank luxuriance;A fountain a kind sunbeam searches for,Sinking the lustre of its arrowy fingerThrough the long grass its own strange virtueHath blinded up its crystal eye withal:Make me a broad strong river coming downWith shouts from its high hills, whose rocky heartsThrob forth the joy of their stabilityIn watery pulses from their inmost deeps;And I shall be a vein upon thy world,Circling perpetual from the parent deep.

Most mighty One,Confirm and multiply my thoughts of good;Help me to wall each sacred treasure roundWith the firm battlements of special action.Alas, my holy happy thoughts of theeMake not perpetual nest within my soul,But like strange birds of dazzling colours stoopThe trailing glories of their sunward speedFor one glad moment, filling my blasted boughsWith the sunshine of their wings. Make me a forestOf gladdest life wherein perpetual springLifts up her leafy tresses in the wind.Lo, now I seeThy trembling starlight sit among my pines,And thy young moon slide down my arching boughsWith a soft sound of restless eloquence!And I can feel a joy as when thy hostsOf trampling winds, gathering in maddened bands,Roar upward through the blue and flashing dayRound my still depths of uncleft solitude.

Hear me, O Lord,When the black night draws down upon my soul,And voices of temptation darken downThe misty wind, slamming thy starry doorsWith bitter jests:--"Thou fool!" they seem to say,"Thou hast no seed of goodness in thee; allThy nature hath been stung right through and through;Thy sin hath blasted thee and made thee old;Thou hadst a will, but thou hast killed it dead,And with the fulsome garniture of lifeBuilt out the loathsome corpse; thou art a childOf night and death, even lower than a worm;Gather the skirts up of thy shadowy self,And with what resolution thou hast leftFall on the damned spikes of doom!"

Oh, take me like a child,If thou hast made me for thyself, my God,And lead me up thy hills. I shall not fear,So thou wilt make me pure, and beat back sinWith the terrors of thine eye: it fears me notAs once it might have feared thine own good image,But lays bold siege at my heart's doors.

Oh, I have seen a thing of beauty standIn the young moonlight of its upward thoughts,And the old earth came round it with its giftsOf gladness, whispering leaves, and odorous plants,Until its large and spiritual eyeBurned with intensest love: my God, I couldHave watched it evermore with Argus-eyes,Lest when the noontide of the summer's sunLet down the tented sunlight on the plain,His flaming beams should scorch my darling flower;And through the fruitless nights of leaden gloom,Of plashing rains, and knotted winds of cold,Yea, when thy lightnings ran across the sky,And the loud stumbling blasts fell from the hillsUpon the mounds of death, I could have watchedGuarding such beauty like another life!But, O my God, it changed!--Yet methinks I know not if it was not I!Its beauty turned to ghastly loathsomeness!Then a hand spurned me backwards from the clouds,And with the gather of a mighty whirlwind,Drew in the glittering gifts of life.

How long, O Lord, how long?I am a man lost in a rocky place!Lo, all thy echoes smite me with confusionOf varied speech,--the cry of vanished LifeRolled upon nations' sighs--of hearts upliftedAgainst despair--the stifled sounds of WoeSitting perpetual by its grey cold well--Or wasted Toil climbing its endless hillsWith quickening gasps--or the thin winds of JoyThat beat about the voices of the crowd!

Lord, hast thou sentThy moons to mock us with perpetual hope?Lighted within our breasts the love of loveTo make us ripen for despair, my God?

Oh, dost thou hold each individual soulStrung clear upon thy flaming rods of purpose?Or does thine inextinguishable willStand on the steeps of night with lifted handFilling the yawning wells of monstrous spaceWith mixing thought--drinking up single lifeAs in a cup? and from the rending foldsOf glimmering purpose, do all thy navied starsSlide through the gloom with mystic melody,Like wishes on a brow? Oh, is my soul,Hung like a dewdrop in thy grassy ways,Drawn up again into the rack of changeEven through the lustre which created it?--O mighty one, thou wilt not smite me throughWith scorching wrath, because my spirit standsBewildered in thy circling mysteries!

Oh lift the burdened gloom that chokes my soulWith dews of darkness; smite the lean winds of deathThat run with howls around the ruined temples,Blowing the souls of men about like leaves.

Lo, the broad life-lands widen overhead,Star-galaxies arise like drifting snow,And happy life goes whitening down the streamOf boundless action, whilst my fettered soulSits, as a captive in a noisome dungeonWatches the pulses of his withered heartLave out the sparkling minutes of his lifeOn the idle flags!

Come in the glory of thine excellence,Rive the dense gloom with wedges of clear light,And let the shimmer of thy chariot wheelsBurn through the cracks of night! So slowly, Lord,To lift myself to thee with hands of toil,Climbing the slippery cliffs of unheard prayer!Lift up a hand among my idle days--One beckoning finger: I will cast asideThe clogs of earthly circumstance and runUp the broad highways where the countless worldsSit ripening in the summer of thy love.Send a clear meaning sparkling through the years;Burst all the prison-doors, and make men's heartsGush up like fountains with thy melody;Brighten the hollow eyes; fill with life's fruitsThe hands that grope and scramble down the wastes;And let the ghastly troops of withered onesCome shining o'er the mountains of thy love.

Lord, thy strange mysteries come thickening downUpon my head like snowflakes, shutting outThe happy upper fields with chilly vapour.Shall I content my soul with a weak senseOf safety? or feed my ravenous hunger withSore purged hopes, that are not hopes but fearsClad in white raiment?

The creeds lie in the hollow of men's heartsLike festering pools glassing their own corruption;The slimy eyes stare up with dull approval,And answer not when thy bright starry feetMove on the watery floors: oh, shake men's soulsTogether like the gathering of all oceansRent from their hidden chambers, till the wavesLift up their million voices of high joyAlong the echoing cliffs! come thus, O Lord,With nightly gifts of stars, and lay a handOf mighty peace upon the quivering flood.

O wilt thou hear me when I cry to thee?I am a child lost in a mighty forest;The air is thick with voices, and strange handsReach through the dusk, and pluck me by the skirts.There is a voice which sounds like words from home,But, as I stumble on to reach it, seemsTo leap from rock to rock: oh, if it isWilling obliquity of sense, descend,Heal all my wanderings, take me by the hand,And lead me homeward through the shadows.Let me not by my wilful acts of prideBlock up the windows of thy truth, and growA wasted, withered thing, that stumbles onDown to the grave with folded hands of slothAnd leaden confidence.