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THE PRAYER IN THE WILDERNESS.
Father of Spirits, hear!
Look on the inmost heart to thee revealed,
Look on the fountain of the burning tear,
Before thy sight in solitude unsealed!
Hear, Father! hear, and aid!
If I have lov'd too well, if I have shed,
In my vain fondness, o'er a mortal head,
Gifts, on thy shrine, my God! more fitly laid.
If I have sought to live
But in one light, and made a human eye
The lonely star of mine idolatry,
Thou that art Love! oh, pity and forgive!
Chastened and schooled at last,
No more, no more my struggling spirit burns,
But fixed on thee, from that wild worship turns—
What have I said?—the deep dream is not past!
