| Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Rose’s Diary (1850).
“Prayer is the world-plant’s blossom” | | By Henry Septimus Sutton (1825–1901) |
| | XXII.
JUNE. PRAYER is the world-plant’s blossom, the bright flower, | |
| A higher purpose of the stem and leaves;— | |
| Or call it the church-spire, whose top receives | |
| Such lightning calm as comforts, not aggrieves, | |
| And with it brings the fructifying shower. | 5 |
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| Prayer is the hand that catcheth hold on peace;— | |
| Nay, ’tis the very heart of nobleness | |
| Whose pulses are the measure of the stress | |
| Wherewith He doth us, we do Him, possess: | |
| If these should fail, all our true life would cease. | 10 |
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| Who live in prayer a friend shall never miss; | |
| If we should slip, a timely staff and kind | |
| Placed in our grasp by hands unseen shall find; | |
| Sometimes upon our foreheads a soft kiss, | |
| And arms cast round us gently from behind. | 15 | | | |
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