A PRAYER by ALICE CARY

I HAVE been little used to frame
Wishes to speech and call it prayer;
To-day, my Father, in thy name,
I ask to have my soul stript bare
Of all its vain pretense, -- to see
Myself, as I am seen by thee.

I want to know how much the pain
And passion here, its powers abate;
To take its thoughts, a tangled skein,
And stretch them out all smooth and straight;
To track its wavering course through sin
And sorrow, to its origin.

I want to know if in the night
Of evil, grace doth so abound,
That from its darkness we draw light,
As flowers do beauty from the ground;
Or, if the sins of time shall be
The shadows of eternity.

I want, though only for an hour,
To be myself, -- to get more near
The wondrous mystery and power
Of love, whose echoes floating here,
Between us and the waiting grave,
Make all of light, of heaven, we have.

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