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| O STRONG, upwelling prayers of faith, | |
| From inmost founts of life ye start,— | |
| The spirit’s pulse, the vital breath | |
| Of soul and heart! | |
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| From pastoral toil, from traffic’s din, | 5 |
| Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad, | |
| Unheard of man, ye enter in | |
| The ear of God. | |
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| Ye brook no forced and measured tasks, | |
| Nor weary rote, nor formal chains; | 10 |
| The simple heart, that freely asks | |
| In love, obtains. | |
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| For man the living temple is: | |
| The mercy-seat and cherubim, | |
| And all the holy mysteries, | 15 |
| He bears with him. | |
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| And most avails the prayer of love, | |
| Which, wordless, shapes itself in deeds, | |
| And wearies heaven for naught above | |
| Our common needs. | 20 |
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| Which brings to God’s all-perfect will | |
| That trust of his undoubting child, | |
| Whereby all seeming good and ill | |
| Are reconciled. | |
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| And, seeking not for special signs | 25 |
| Of favor, is content to fall | |
| Within the providence which shines | |
| And rains on all. | |
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| Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned | |
| At noontime o’er the sacred word. | 30 |
| Was it an angel or a fiend | |
| Whose voice he heard? | |
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| It broke the desert’s hush of awe, | |
| A human utterance, sweet and mild; | |
| And, looking up, the hermit saw | 35 |
| A little child. | |
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| A child, with wonder-widened eyes, | |
| O’erawed and troubled by the sight | |
| Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies, | |
| And anchorite. | 40 |
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| “What dost thou here, poor man? No shade | |
| Of cool, green doums, nor grass, nor well, | |
| Nor corn, nor vines.” The hermit said: | |
| “With God I dwell. | |
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| “Alone with Him in this great calm, | 45 |
| I live not by the outward sense; | |
| My Nile his love, my sheltering palm | |
| His providence.” | |
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| The child gazed round him. “Does God live | |
| Here only?—where the desert’s rim | 50 |
| Is green with corn, at morn and eve, | |
| We pray to him. | |
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| “My brother tills beside the Nile | |
| His little field: beneath the leaves | |
| My sisters sit and spin the while, | 55 |
| My mother weaves. | |
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| “And when the millet’s ripe heads fall, | |
| And all the bean-field hangs in pod, | |
| My mother smiles, and says that all | |
| Are gifts from God. | 60 |
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| “And when to share our evening meal, | |
| She calls the stranger at the door, | |
| She says God fills the hands that deal | |
| Food to the poor.” | |
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| Adown the hermit’s wasted cheeks | 65 |
| Glistened the flow of human tears; | |
| “Dear Lord!” he said, “thy angel speaks, | |
| Thy servant hears.” | |
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| Within his arms the child he took, | |
| And thought of home and life with men; | 70 |
| And all his pilgrim feet forsook | |
| Returned again. | |
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| The palmy shadows cool and long, | |
| The eyes that smiled through lavish locks, | |
| Home’s cradle-hymn and harvest-song, | 75 |
| And bleat of flocks. | |
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| “O child!” he said, “thou teachest me | |
| There is no place where God is not; | |
| That love will make, where’er it be, | |
| A holy spot.” | 80 |
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| He rose from off the desert sand, | |
| And, leaning on his staff of thorn, | |
| Went, with the young child, hand in hand, | |
| Like night with morn. | |
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| They crossed the desert’s burning line, | 85 |
| And heard the palm-tree’s rustling fan, | |
| The Nile-bird’s cry, the low of kine, | |
| And voice of man. | |
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| Unquestioning, his childish guide | |
| He followed as the small hand led | 90 |
| To where a woman, gentle-eyed, | |
| Her distaff fed. | |
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| She rose, she clasped her truant boy, | |
| She thanked the stranger with her eyes. | |
| The hermit gazed in doubt and joy | 95 |
| And dumb surprise. | |
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| And lo!—with sudden warmth and light | |
| A tender memory thrilled his frame; | |
| New-born, the world-lost anchorite | |
| A man became. | 100 |
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| “O sister of El Zara’s race, | |
| Behold me!—had we not one mother?” | |
| She gazed into the stranger’s face;— | |
| “Thou art my brother?” | |
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| “O kin of blood!—Thy life of use | 105 |
| And patient trust is more than mine; | |
| And wiser than the gray recluse | |
| This child of thine. | |
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| “For, taught of him whom God hath sent, | |
| That toil is praise, and love is prayer, | 110 |
| I come, life’s cares and pains content | |
| With thee to share.” | |
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| Even as his foot the threshold crossed, | |
| The hermit’s better life began; | |
| Its holiest saint the Thebaid lost, | 115 |
| And found a man! | |
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