A PRAYER REVIEWED. COMPOSED'ON A SICK BED AT THE AGE OF

Otago Witness, Issue 1847, 15 April 1887, Page 32

A PRAYER REVIEWED. COMPOSED' ON A SICK BED AT THE AGE OF

SKTBKN. * y , ' Feeble and weary with pain, upon my bed' I to*3B, ' •With every beat my youthful heart rebels beneath the cross. " > I lie and watch the fleecy clouds that pass the summer sky, And think, I cannot help the thought,' I do not want to die. To die ! while life is fresh and glad, bright, hopeful in its spring ; ' - • • To die ! while in rich melody the birds in chorus sing ; To d!e ! while flowers shed their perfume around my feet, To pass into the silence, and life so new arid sweet.' To die ! with uot one broken link within the goldon chain : - - To tread no more with feet of Jove the paths th-ough life again. • , If this rebellious prayer be sin, oh Thou, enthroned on high, Lock down and pardon, let me live ; Ido not want to die. . - - • ; I read that bygone prayer to-night," but through a mist of tears, -- f <' ? And cast my memory o'er the rage of intervening years ; • I lay the gain beside the lots, the flowers beside tho ' thornt, . i The shadows by the suubeams, the calms beside the storms. Some links are missing in the chain, and oh ! some kindred feet Will tread no more beside my own, until the two roads meet. I catch in songs of birds and streams a murmured undertone Of sadness, that is part the world's— the other part my own. I've learned fchafc there are costly gems beneath the restless tide Of life's rough sea. That silken robes the dross and dirt may hide ; That smiles may flit like sunbeams, that on the surface gleam, While underneath the waters flow « cold and darksome stream. So I read my old prayer over, that wild impulsive cry, But, to-night, I neither ask to live, nor do I fear to die. ' ,