Prayer.

I stood upon a hill, and watched the death         Of the day's turmoil. Still the glory spread         Cloud-top to cloud-top, and each rearing head     Trembled to crimson. So a mighty breath         From some wild Titan in a rising ire         Might kindle flame in voicing his desire.     Soft stirred the evening air; the pine-crowned hills         Glowed in an answering rapture where the flush         Grew to a blood-drop, and the vesper hush     Moved in my soul, while from my life all ills         Faded and passed away. God's voice was there         And in my heart the silence was a prayer.     There was a day when to my fearfulness         Was born a joy, when doubt was swept afar         A shadow and a memory, and a star     Gleamed in my sky more bright for the distress.         The stillness breathed thanksgiving, and the air         Wafted, methought, the incense of a prayer.     Heaven sets no bounds of bead-roll or appeal;         And when the fiery heart with mute embrace         Bends, tremblingly, but for a moment's space     It needs no words that cry, no limbs that kneel.         As meteors flash, so, in a moment's light,         Life, darting forth, touches the Infinite.     All my prayers wordless? Nay, I can recall         A night not so long past but that each thought         Lives at this hour, and throbs again unsought     When Silence broods, and Night's chill shadows fall;         Then Darkness' thousand pulses thrilled and stirred         With the dear grace of a remembered word;     And I was still, thy voice enshrouding me.         Like the strong sweep of ocean-breath the power         Of one resistless thought transformed my hour     Of love-dreams to a fear. All hopelessly         I knew love's impotence, and my despair         Stretched soul-hands forth, and quivered to a prayer.     My passionate heart cried out: "If his dear life         Through stress of keen temptation merits aught         Of penance or requital, be it wrought     Upon my life. If only through the strife         Is won the peace, through drudgery the gain,         Give him the issue, and to me the pain!"     Some day, in our soul's course o'er trackless lands,         Swayed oft by adverse winds, or swept along         In Fate's wild current with the fluttering throng     Towards Sin's engulfing maelstrom, spirit hands         Will brace our trembling wings, and through the night         Point and upbear in our last trembling flight.