Songs, Merry and Sad

A Prayer

     If many years should dim my inward sight,
      Till, stirred with no emotion,
     I might stand gazing at the fall of night
      Across the gloaming ocean;

     Till storm, and sun, and night, vast with her stars,
      Would seem an oft-told story,
     And the old sorrow of heroic wars
      Be faded of its glory;

     Till, hearing, while June's roses blew their musk,
      The noise of field and city,
     The human struggle, sinking tired at dusk,
      I felt no thrill of pity;

     Till dawn should come without her old desire,
      And day brood o'er her stages,—
     O let me die, too frail for nature's hire,
      And rest a million ages.