Poem by Philip James Bailey

Prayer

Yea! even here as everywhere, let man
Worship his Recreator, and the world's
Made perfect by preliminary fire.

O Thou, who in the inaccessible depths
Dwellest, of all central Being, and of whom
We can but see the star dust of Thy feet,
Left on Heaven's roads; from world, nathless, to world,
From firmament to firmament, can we trace
Each soul his individual link with Thee;
The pure invisible touch which makes us Thine,
The something more substantial than the sun,
More general than the void, yet nested here,
As through the airy silence of the soul
Swifter than eagle rushing on the wind,
Thou sweep'st into possession when Thou wilt.
So many are Thy mercies there is nought
But this to pray for, left;--Continue that
Thou givest! To cease pertaineth not to Thee.
The elements may all confusedly fail,
And burning systems stiffen or depart
Into their graves of darkness and decay;--
The Sun, at length, exhausted in the strife
With his aetherial victor, sleep and die;--
And firmaments conglobe them, till at last
The universe concentre in one orb,
Fit for Thy footstool only. Change like this
Ten thousand times may happen, till it fall,
To the observant spirits at Thy right hand,
Noteless by reoccurrence; Man, the while,
Restored into the essence whence he came,--
One with the great ones who have dwelt in him,--
Who cannot deal with less than infinites,
Nor utter what is not divine and true,--
Shall ripen in Thy bosom till he grow,
Through endless Heavens triumphant and serene,
Into the throned god Thou badst him be. 

1. Festus - 37
2. Festus - 11
3. Festus - 25
4. Festus - Proem
5. Festus - 38

Arthur Benson Prayer ("MY sorrow had pierced me through; it throbbed in my heart like a thorn")

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