Prayers and Poems
for August |
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August
The wind sang to the cornfields
A happy little song,
And this is what he whispered,
“The harvest won’t be long.”
The wind sang to the windmill
A merry little tune.
The windmill answered gaily,
“The harvest’s coming soon.”
The whispering of the poppies
Through the cornfields steals along,
They are joining with the wild birds
Singing harvest’s merry song.
Anon
**
Country Faith
Here in the country’s
heart
Where the grass is green
Life is the same sweet life
As it e’er hath been.
Trust in a God still lives
And the bell at morn
Flouts with a thought of God
O’er the rising corn.
God comes down in the rain
And the crop grows tall
This is the country faith
And the best of all!
Norman Gale
**
The church floor
Mark you the floor? That
square and speckled stone,
Which look so firm and strong,
Is Patience.
And th’other black and grave, wherewith each one
Is chequer’d all along -
Humility.
The gentle rising, which on either hand
Leads to the quire above
Is Confidence.
But the sweet cement, which in one sure band
Ties the whole frame, is Love -
And Charity
By George Herbert from The Temple
**
A Breton fisherman’s prayer
Protect me, dear Lord;
My boat is so small,
And your sea is so big.
**
Take me from myself
My Lord and my God, take me
from all that keeps me from you
My Lord and my God, grant me all that leads me to you
My Lord and my God, take me from myself and give me
completely to you.
By Nicholas of Flue
**
The Old Woman of the Roads
O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped-up sods upon the fire
The pile of turf against the wall!
To have a clock with weights
and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down
A dresser filled with shining delph
Speckled and white and blue and brown!
I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!
I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself
Sure of a bed, and loth to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delph
Oh! But I’m weary of mist
and dark
And roads where there’s never a house or bush
And tired I am of the bog, and the road
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!
And I am praying to God on high
And I am praying Him night and day
For a little house – a house of my own
Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.
By Padraic Column
