A POET'S PRAYER

Give me pause and time for dreaming; Send me to some quiet place Where the winding water, gleaming, Holds a glass before my face.

Here within the grind and clamour I forget what I have known; Life and love have lost their glamour, And my heart is turned to stone.

Shrub and bird and beast are mingled With a clumsy dream of man; Lost the ancient art that singled Hoof and brow of brooding Pan!

Strike the rock, release the river, Bid it through the desert go; Let its shallows dance and quiver, And its flood majestic flow;

Till again the rushing rapture Of the poet's soul is mine, With its swift pursuit to capture Visions that are all divine.