| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 269. Prayer |
| By Arthur Christopher Benson (b. 1862) |
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| MY sorrow had pierced me through; it throbbed in my heart like a thorn; | |
| This way and that I stared, as a bird with a broken limb | |
| Hearing the hound’s strong feet thrust imminent through the corn, | |
| So to my God I turned: and I had forgotten Him. | |
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| Into the night I breathed a prayer like a soaring fire;— | 5 |
| So to the windswept cliff the resonant rocket streams,— | |
| And it struck its mark, I know; for I felt my flying desire | |
| Strain, like a rope drawn home, and catch in the land of dreams. | |
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| What was the answer? This—the horrible depth of night, | |
| And deeper, as ever I peer, the huge cliff’s mountainous shade, | 10 |
| While the frail boat cracks and grinds, and never a star in sight, | |
| And the seething waves smite fiercer;—and yet I am not afraid. | |
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