Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849)Prayer: I. There is an awful quiet in the air
| THERE is an awful quiet in the air, | |
| And the sad earth, with moist imploring eye, | |
| Looks wide and wakeful at the pondering sky, | |
| Like Patience slow subsiding to Despair. | |
| But see, the blue smoke, as a voiceless prayer, | 5 |
| Sole witness of a secret sacrifice, | |
| Unfolds its tardy wreaths, and multiplies | |
| Its soft chameleon breathings in the rare | |
| Capacious ether,—so it fades away, | |
| And nought is seen beneath the pendent blue, | 10 |
| The undistinguishable waste of day. | |
| So have I dreamed!—oh, may the dream be true!— | |
| That praying souls are purged from mortal hue, | |
| And grow as pure as He to whom they pray. | |