University of Virginia Library

THE HOUR OF PRAYER.

To see the being—exquisitely dear,
Slumbering in all unconsciousness of fear,
Or care, or hope,—beneath our watchful eyes,
Thrills the deep heart with trembling sympathies;
The soul we have so lived in, known and loved,
Seems from our kindred soul too far removed.
We may not follow on its viewless track—
Bright-pinioned Thought, were all too dull and slack:
Imagination all too cold and weak
Its hidden haunts to pierce, or even to seek!
Its unseen path we may not hope to trace
Through the wide dream-lands of aërial space,
Whose gorgeous mysteries shrink from our foiled gaze,
When not ourselves—in sleep's enchanted maze—
Whose varying splendours mock our vain essay
To scan them by the light of common day!
Sleep's world is boundless; like Eternity!
Past, present, future, there appear to be,
Commingling and compressed—no bourn—no bound,
Doth there the aching sense, surprise, surround;
But all, is indistinct, and vague, and vast,
And all, alas! too beautiful to last.
Yes, mighty influences! strong and deep,
Dwell round our loved one's in the hour of sleep:
But there is yet a deeper, stronger hour,
Of more prevailing and o'erwhelming power,
Of more victorious—more transcending might!
Whether at rosy dawn of opening light
Or shut of flowers, or hush of stillest night,
Or slumberous lull of noontide's sultry air,—
Think, think ye of the hallowed Hour of Prayer!
Oh! to behold with thoughtful-drooping eyes,
In blest communion with the eternal skies,
The Chosen-one, and cherished of the heart,
Doth it not to the softened soul impart
A solemn peace, and to the uplifted mind
A cloudless joy—exalted and refined?
Doth it not raise on Faith's sustaining surge,
The thoughts so won, from Care's dim depths to emerge—
Doth it not sweetly, strangely, richly bless
With calm and beautiful heavenly-mindedness?
Oh! let us keep our spirits pure, to share
Our own Beloved-one's consecrated prayer;
That holy hush, that gracious stillness seems
To emparadise us in a world of dreams,
A veil of woof ætherial,—intervenes
'T ween us and life's intoxicating scenes.
From its cold, hollow pageantries we turn
For lovelier things, for loftier joys to yearn,
While crowd to breathlessness in the heart's core
(Like thronging waves along the heaving shore)
Thoughts wrestling with themselves, till they grow strong
To bear the upspringing soul with them along—
Yet with a calm, a not ungentle force,
They urge and guide it in its skyey course:
Not like the hurrying and tempestuous strife
Of wild emotions, quick with fiery life—
The Passion-whirlwinds droop and sink away
Beneath that deep hour's harmonizing sway!
Something more holy than Earth's joy or woe
'T is then the bosom's privilege to know!
A solemn ecstasy of full repose
Calmly throughout the entranced existence flows.
A fulness of sublime tranquillity
Smoothes the soul's waves into one breathless sea:
The precious breathings of that whispered Prayer
Float by, like sweet streams of celestial air,
Like perfumed flames they brightly seem to efface
The soul's dark plague-spots with their glowing trace.
Oh! that those plague-spots might not there be found
Deadlier than Grief's immedicable wound,
Since that but wrings the heart with piercing pain,
And they—the marks of sin—corroding stain;—
Would we might keep our spirits pure, to share
Our own Beloved-one's thoughtful-breathing Prayer!
A thrilling sanctity pervades the spot,
How oft 'mid crowded fanes acknowledged not—
Where mighty harmonies in thunders roll,
Yet fail to move the unaccordant soul;
Where pompous shrines and splendid oriels blaze,
And only win the homage of the gaze!
While in the chamber's calm and still retreat,
Where kindred hearts in kindred worship meet,
We little need the elaborate aid of art—
The Beautiful is breathing at the heart!—
Oh! let us keep our spirits pure, to share
Our own Beloved-one's heavenward-mounting Prayer!