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A PRAYER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Let me not die o lord, till I have done
Last Line: That sings and sighs, then falls to wake no more?
Alternate Author Name(s): Dean
Subject(s): Death; God; Prayer; Dead, The


LET me not die, O Lord, till I have done
Some deed to bless the world wherein I dwell!
Spoken some word that when I leave the sun
In other hearts the tide of life shall swell,
And, like a clarion, call to high emprise,
Though hushed for aye my voice and closed my eyes!

For I have been so glad, thy blue below,
That earth and air kept carnival with me;
From banks of rose the winds that softest blow
Bore my light bark across a halcyon sea;
And the swift year through all its days and nights
Blent fairest hopes with dear, fulfilled delights.

And I have swept into such dread abysms,
Tossed with such tides on sorrow's wintry main,
That neither altar-fires nor holy chrisms
Could light my soul or bring a balm for pain;
But, back from every sheltering harbor blown,
Through the great darkness I have groped alone.

And shall I pass, and all this life of mine
Drink voiceless, fruitless, in oblivion's wells? —
who have drained earth's rue and quaffed its wine,
Whose joys have touched the heavens, whose griefs the hells —
Lie as the wind upon some alien shore
That sings and sighs, then falls to wake no more?





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