Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PRAYER OF THE LONELY STUDENT, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PRAYER OF THE LONELY STUDENT, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Night - holy night - the time
Last Line: All the pure stars rejoicingly fulfil.
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Astronomy & Astronomers; Prayer


NIGHT -- holy night -- the time
For mind's free breathings in a purer clime!
Night! -- when in happier hour the unveiling sky
Woke all my kindled soul
To meet its revelations, clear and high,
With the strong joy of immortality!
Now hath strange sadness wrapped me, strange and deep --
And my thoughts faint, and shadows o'er them roll,
E'en when I deemed them seraph-plumed, to sweep
Far beyond earth's control.

Wherefore is this? I see the stars returning,
Fire after fire in heaven's rich temple burning:
Fast shine they forth -- my spirit-friends, my guides,
Bright rulers of my being's inmost tides;
They shine -- but faintly, through a quivering haze:
Oh! is the dimness mine which cloud those rays?
They from whose glance my childhood drank delight!
A joy unquestioning -- a love intense --
They that, unfolding to more thoughtful sight
The harmony of their magnificence,
Drew silently the worship of my youth
To the grave sweetness on the brow of truth;
Shall they shower blessing, with their beams Divine,
Down to the watcher on the stormy sea,
And to the pilgrim toiling for his shrine
Through some wild pass of rocky Apennine,
And to the wanderer lone
On wastes of Afric thrown,
And not to me?
Am I a thing forsaken?
And is the gladness taken
From the bright-pinioned nature which hath soared
Through realms by royal eagle ne'er explored,
And, bathing there in streams of fiery light,
Found strength to gaze upon the Infinite?

And now an alien! Wherefore must this be?
How shall I rend the chain?
How drink rich life again
From those pure urns of radiance, welling free?
-- Father of Spirits! let me turn to Thee!

Oh! if too much exulting in her dower,
My soul, not yet to lowly thought subdued,
Hath stood without Thee on her hill of power --
A fearful and a dazzling solitude!
And therefore from that haughty summit's crown
To dim desertion is by Thee cast down;
Behold! thy child submissively hath bowed --
Shine on him through the cloud!

Let the now darkened earth and curtained heaven
Back to his vision with thy face be given!
Bear him on high once more,
But in thy strength to soar,
And wrapt and stilled by that o'ershadowing might,
Forth on the empyreal blaze to look with chastened sight.

Or if it be that, like the ark's lone dove,
My thoughts go forth, and find no resting-place,
No sheltering home of sympathy and love
In the responsive bosoms of my race,
And back return, a darkness and a weight,
Till my unanswered heart grows desolate --
Yet, yet sustain me, Holiest! -- I am vowed
To solemn service high;
And shall the spirit, for thy tasks endowed,
Sink on the threshold of the sanctuary,
Fainting beneath the burden of the day,
Because no human tone
Unto the altar-stone
Of that pure spousal fane inviolate,
Where it should make eternal truth its mate,
May cheer the sacred, solitary way?

Oh! be the whisper of thy voice within
Enough to strengthen! Be the hope to win
A more deep-seeing homage for thy name,
Far, far beyond the burning dream of fame!
Make me thine only! -- Let me add but one
To those refulgent steps all undefiled,
Which glorious minds have piled
Through bright self-offering, earnest, child-like, lone,
For mounting to thy throne!
And let my soul, upborne
On wings of inner morn,
Find, in illumined secrecy, the sense
Of that blessed work, its own high recompense.

The dimness melts away
That on your glory lay,
O ye majestic watchers of the skies!
Through the dissolving veil,
Which made each aspect pale,
Your gladdening fires once more I recognise;
And once again a shower
Of hope, and joy, and power,
Streams on my soul from your immortal eyes.
And if that splendour to my sobered sight
Come tremulous, with more of pensive light --
Something, though beautiful, yet deeply fraught
With more that pierces through each fold of thought
Than I was wont to trace
On heaven's unshadowed face --
Be it e'en so! -- be mine, though set apart
Unto a radiant ministry, yet still
A lowly, fearful, self-distrusting heart,
Bowed before Thee, O Mightiest! whose blessed will
All the pure stars rejoicingly fulfil.





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