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Home  »  An American Anthology, 1787–1900  »  1139 Ike Walton’s Prayer

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By James WhitcombRiley

1139 Ike Walton’s Prayer

I CRAVE, dear Lord,

No boundless hoard

Of gold and gear,

Nor jewels fine,

Nor lands, nor kine,

Nor treasure-heaps of anything.—

Let but a little hut be mine

Where at the hearthstone I may hear

The cricket sing,

And have the shine

Of one glad woman’s eyes to make,

For my poor sake,

Our simple home a place divine:—

Just the wee cot—the cricket’s chirr—

Love, and the smiling face of her.

I pray not for

Great riches, nor

For vast estates and castle-halls:—

Give me to hear the bare footfalls

Of children o’er

An oaken floor

New-rinsed with sunshine, or bespread

With but the tiny coverlet

And pillow for the baby’s head;

And, pray Thou, may

The door stand open and the day

Send ever in a gentle breeze,

With fragrance from the locust-trees,

And drowsy moan of doves, and blur

Of robin-chirps, and drone of bees,

With after-hushes of the stir

Of intermingling sounds, and then

The goodwife and the smile of her

Filling the silences again—

The cricket’s call

And the wee cot,

Dear Lord of all,

Deny me not!

I pray not that

Men tremble at

My power of place

And lordly sway,—

I only pray for simple grace

To look my neighbor in the face

Full honestly from day to day—

Yield me his horny palm to hold,

And I ’ll not pray

For gold:—

The tanned face, garlanded with mirth,

It hath the kingliest smile on earth;

The swart brow, diamonded with sweat,

Hath never need of coronet.

And so I reach,

Dear Lord, to Thee,

And do beseech

Thou givest me

The wee cot, and the cricket’s chirr,

Love, and the glad sweet face of her.