A Prayer and a Memory.
Lord! Thou who lovest souls, speak while we hear;
Speak to our hearts which have been taught of Thine;
Hearts chosen of Thy Heart, and lifted near
Thy place of dwelling, where Thy mercies shine,
Clear splendors, pledged of love eternally divine.
We have been wandering very far afield,
Whom Thou hast gathered, as in days of old,
At this same shrine, where still Thy hand doth yield
Abundant blessing for the heads whose gold
Of childhood shines not now, for childhood's days are told.
We have been far (our life has many ways);
Through purple uplands, where the sun has lain
All day in silent warmth, or lost in haze
That rises slowly from the sunken plain
To hide Thy hills from sight through weary days of pain.
We have been wandering; some of us in light,
And some in shadow; some with folded hands
That never knew a burden; some in night,
With only Patience leading them through lands
Untrod of summer, held in winter's frozen bands.
And some have breathed in joy the buoyant air
Of sea-washed coasts; and some have stifled been
In crowded ways, where faces old with care
Look with a backward glance on pastures green,
On forests wide and deep with flowered rifts between.
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