A CHRISTMAS PRAYER.

Motueka Star, Volume I, Issue 39, 24 December 1901, Page 4

A CHRISTMAS PRAYER.

[By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.] Lord, for the lonely heart I pray apart. Now, for the son of sorrow Whom this to-morrow Rejoiceth not, O Lord, Hear my weak word. For lives too bitter to be borne, For the tempted and the torn. For the prisoner in the cell. For the shame lip doth not tell, For the haggard suicide, Peace, peace, this Christmastide ! Into the desert, trod By the long sick, O God ; Into the patient gloom Of that small room Where lies the child of pain— Of all neglected, most—be fain To enter, healing, and remain. Now, at the fail of day, I bow and pray For those who cannot sleep, A watch I keep. Oh, let the starving brain Be fed and fed again ; At thy behest The tortured nerve find rest. I see the vacant chair. Father of Souls, prepare My poor thought’s feeble power To plead this hour ; For the empty, aching home. Where the silent footsteps come, Where the unseen face looks on, Where the hand-clasp is not felt Where the dearest eyes are gone, Where the portrait on the wall Stirs and struggles as to speak, Where the light breath from the hall Calls the colour to the cheek. Where the voice breaks in the hymn Where the sunset burnetii dim, Where the late, large tear will start, Frozen by the broken heart, Where the lesson is to learn How to live, to grieve, to yearn, How to bear and how to bow, Oh, the Christmas that is fled ! Lord of living and of dead, Comfort THOU !