Prayer

“I pray for you,” my dear one said,
“And entreat the god to bless
Your desires with fulfillment,
And your life with happiness.”
I thanked her for the gesture,
For it was well and fully meant,
Though my skeptic’s mind assured me
That it was only sentiment.

From the hollow sense of parting
In which I laid aside the phone,
Returning me to silence,
And to these walls, alone
Among the tiered and brooding books
Upon their beetling shelves,
It was easy to imagine God
Indifferent to ourselves.

Indeed, why should one occupied
With such universal care,
So far above this petty realm,
Consent to yield or spare
A moment’s truck to trifle
With such weightless wraiths as we?
(Though the beating heart within her breast
Was all the world to me.)

Now, as my thoughts were thus engaged,
My vision chanced to fall
Upon a withered flower bush
Beside my garden wall.
I remembered, in its season,
How that fair and fragile bloom
Brought color to my table-tops
And fragrance to my room.
And that now it looked so different
From its early, verdant prime,
Downtrodden by the tramp of days,
The heedless boot of time.

Here, it seemed, was just the case
To prove Divinity remiss:
If Solomon, in glory,
Was not so richly robed as this
Or any flower of the field
That ever bloomed or grew,
And wiled the day in rare array
Its fleeting fullness through,
Then how could we less splendrous forms
To Heaven’s note aspire,
Who are but stubble, tares, and chaff,
Fit only for the fire?

But was not this whole argument
Of the brash, conceited kind
That leads the haughty to a fall
Through an arrogance of mind?
For reasoned logic holds a charm
Irrespective of its source,
A siren’s song convincing men
To almost any course.
And so it had persuaded me
To an ignorance of Spring,
Which delivers, in its yearly march,
To every living thing,
The miracle of life reborn
In burrow and in bower,
And visits to the whole, wide earth
Resurrection’s quick’ning power.

Thus does the Lord provide alike
Despite the doubts of fools,
For the burdened in their labors
And the tadpoles in their pools.
Such is meet and well becoming
One, to whom ‘tis said,
Is known the need of every heart,
And the hairs of every head.

And when I pictured, ‘neath these leaden skies
Of winter’s sullen set,
My beloved’s high and distant home
Where it was colder yet,
I trusted God find no offense,
But welcome, all the same,
A humbly sent reminder
In the spirit whence it came.

So, with full and chastened heart,
I sent aloft a plea
That He would keep and hold her safe
Who was so dear to me;
And shield her with enfolding grace
From life’s many, lurking harms,
‘Til He deliver her within the fence
Of my open, grateful arms.