LIKE some school master, kind in being stern, Who hears the children crying o'er their slates And calling, "Help me master!" yet helps not, Since in his silence and refusal lies Their self-development, so God abides Unheeding many prayers. He is not deaf To any cry sent up from earnest hearts, He hears and strengthens when He must deny. He sees us weeping over life's hard sums But should He give the key and dry our tears What would it profit us when school were done And not one lesson mastered? What a world Were this if all our prayers were answered. Not In famed Pandora's box were such vast ills As lie in human hearts. Should our desires Voiced one by one in prayer ascend to God And come back as events shaped to our wish What chaos would result! In my fierce youth I sighed out breath enough to move a fleet Voicing wild prayers to heaven for fancied boons Which were denied; and that denial bends My knee to prayers of gratitude for each day Of my maturer years. Yet from those prayers I rose alway regirded for the strife And conscious of new strength. Pray on, sad heart, That which thou pleadest for may not be given But in the lofty altitude where souls Who supplicate God's grace are lifted there Thou shalt find help to bear thy daily lot Which is not elsewhere found. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE USE OF FLOWERS by MARY HOWITT MORITURI SALUTAMUS [WE WHO ARE TO DIE SALUTE YOU] by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW TO THE UNIMPLORED BELOVED by EDWARD SHANKS THE SHADOWS by FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ by ALFRED TENNYSON BUDDHA AND BRAHMA by HENRY BROOKS ADAMS BRUCE: IN PRAISE OF FREEDOM by JOHN BARBOUR THE BLASPHEMER'S WARNING; A LAY OF ST. ROMWOLD by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM |