Eos: An Epic of the Dawn, and Other Poems

By Nicholas Flood Davin

 

THE PRAYER.

 
Tell me did he hear thee maiden?
    Did he grant thy gentle prayer?
Does he rest the heavy laden?
    Is there balm for wounding there?

Beyond voids no science bridges,
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    Beyond suns no glass can sight,
Beyond calm eternal ridges,
    Casting shadows infinite,

Where he dwells in vast seclusion,
    Which not fancy’s wing can reach,
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Does he heed the fond illusion,
    That he recks man’s feeble speech?

Say, did bright-robed angels flutter
    O’er thy young form bending there?
Did some voice mysterious utter,
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    Sure responses to thy prayer?
    
                 *     *     *     *

Angels bright-robed may have flutter’d
    O’er me bowed in sorrow there,
But no voice mysterious utter’d
    Aught responsive to my prayer. [Page 108]
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Only in my heart I felt where
    Softly Jesus gently stirred,
And around me as I knelt there,
    All the effluence of the Word.

Yes, Lord! coarse sense failed to hear thee,
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    Sense made dull by sin’s black wine,
Yet my God I knew thee near me,
    And my spirit touched by thine. [Page 109]