Page:The Christian Year 1887.djvu/81

How far in Ocean's swell
         Her freshening billows send?

Perchance that little brook shall flow
   The bulwark of some mighty realm,
      Bear navies to and fro
         With monarchs at their helm.

Or canst thou guess, how far away
   Some sister nymph, beside her urn
      Reclining night and day,
         'Mid reeds and mountain fern,

Nurses her store, with thine to blend
   When many a moor and glen are past,
      Then in the wide sea end
         Their spotless lives at last?

E'en so, the course of prayer who knows?
   It springs in silence where it will,
      Springs out of sight, and flows
         At first a lonely rill:

But streams shall meet it by and by
   From thousand sympathetic hearts,
      Together swelling high
         Their chant of many parts.

Unheard by all but angel ears
   The good Cornelius knelt alone,
      Nor dreamed his prayers and tears
         Would help a world undone.

The while upon his terraced roof
   The loved Apostle to his Lord
      In silent thought aloof
         For heavenly vision soared.

Far o'er the glowing western main
   His wistful brow was upward raised,
      Where, like an angel's train,
         The burnished water blazed.

The saint beside the ocean prayed,
   This soldier in his chosen bower,
      Where all his eye surveyed
         Seemed sacred in that hour.