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Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

The Unfinished Prayer

By Anonymous

“NOW I lay,”—repeat it, darling.

“Lay me,” lisped the tiny lips

Of my daughter, kneeling, bending

O’er her folded finger-tips.

“Down to sleep”—“To sleep,” she murmured,

And the curly head bent low;

“I pray the Lord,” I gently added;

“You can say it all, I know.”

“Pray the Lord”—the sound came faintly,

Fainter still—“My soul to keep;”

Then the tired head fairly nodded,

And the child was fast asleep.

But the dewy eyes half opened

When I clasped her to my breast,

And the dear voice softly whispered,

“Mamma, God knows all the rest.”

Oh, the trusting, sweet confiding

Of the child heart! Would that I

Thus might trust my Heavenly Father,

He who hears my feeblest cry.