Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PRAYER, by EDWARD BLISS REED


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PRAYER, by                    
First Line: She cannot tell my name / nor whence I came
Last Line: When my child's call I hear, I catch her to my heart.
Subject(s): Death - Children; Fathers & Daughters; Love; Prayer; Death - Babies


She cannot tell my name
Nor whence I came.
But when at night she hears my voice below
My little girl runs quickly down the hall,
Peers through the stair bars, laughing at my call,
Yet who or what I am she does not know.
Nor can she understand
All that for her I've planned;
That the day's work without her would be vain,
Or how her laughter clears the troubled brain;
That her small hands, soft as the white rose leaf,
Can ward off grief.
Then as she runs to me, each faltering word
Seems the divinest music I have heard.
She does not know the father's love I feel,
That were she gone, her death would pierce the heart like steel.

O God, thy ways are dark.
Man cannot mark
Thy path upon the mountain or the sea.
We cannot read thy will or know thy mind,
Baffled by one small world thou hast designed,
Awed by the grandeur of infinity.
He who can trace
The marching stars through space,
Measure the oceans, lift the mountains up,
Scatter the perfume in the lily's cup,
Planning for aeons, measuring each year,
Will this God hear?
Yes; if we call to Him in joy, dismay,
(For that is prayer) He cannot turn away,
A Father dwelling with us, not apart.
When my child's call I hear, I catch her to my heart.





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