Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PRAYER FOR PEACE, by WILLIAM SAMUEL JOHNSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PRAYER FOR PEACE, by                    
First Line: Now these were visions in the night of war
Last Line: "thy will be done!"" . . . There is no peace!"
Subject(s): Peace; Prayer


Now these were visions in the night of war:
I prayed for peace; God, answering my prayer,
Sent down a previous plague on humankind,
A black and tumorous plague that softly slew
Till nations and their armies were no more --
And there was perfect peace . . .
But I awoke, wroth with high God and prayer.

I prayed for peace; God, answering my prayer,
Decreed the Truce of Life: -- Wings in the sky
Fluttered and fell; the quick, bright ocean things
Sank to the ooze; the footprints in the woods
Vanished; the freed brute from the abattoir
Starved on green pastures; and within the blood
The death-work at the root of living ceased;
And men gnawed clods and stones, blasphemed and died --
And there was perfect peace . . .
But I awoke, wroth with high God and prayer.

I prayed for peace; God, answering my prayer,
Bowed the free neck beneath a yoke of steel,
Dumbed the free voice that springs in lyric speech,
Killed the free art that glows on all mankind,
And made one iron nation lord of earth,
Which in the monstrous matrix of its will
Moulded a spawn of slaves. There was One Might --
And there was perfect peace . . .
But I awoke, wroth with high God and prayer.

I prayed for peace; God, answering my prayer,
Palsied all flesh with bitter fear of death.
The shuddering slayers fled to town and field
Beset with carrion visions, foul decay,
And sickening taints of air that made the earth
One charnel of the shrivelled lines of war.
And through all flesh that omnipresent fear
Became the strangling fingers of a hand
That choked aspiring thought and brave belief
And love of loveliness and selfless deed
Till flesh was all, flesh wallowing, styed in fear,
In festering fear that stank beyond the stars --
And there was perfect peace . . .
But I awoke, wroth with high God and prayer.

I prayed for peace; God, answering my prayer,
Spake very softly of forgotten things,
Spake very softly old remembered words
Sweet as young starlight. Rose to heaven again
The mystic challenge of the Nazarene,
That deathless affirmation: -- Man in God
And God in man willing the God to be . . .
And there was war and peace, and peace and war,
Full year and lean, joy, anguish, life and death,
Doing their work on the evolving soul,
The soul of man in God and God in man.
For death is nothing in the sum of things,
And life is nothing in the sum of things,
And flesh is nothing in the sum of things,
But man in God is all and God in man,
Will merged in will, love immanent in love,
Moving through visioned vistas to one goal --
The goal of man in God and God in man,
And of all life in God and God in life --
The far fruition of our earthly prayer,
"Thy will be done!" . . . There is no peace!





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