"A Prayer"

"A Prayer"

Lord, come thou now to the battlefield

      Where my heart and my soul must fight;

My heart for its sweet but wrong desire,

      And my dauntless soul for the Right.

Let my heart go down. Lord God, I pray

      Be with my soul this night!

For the heart is a traitor, wild and red,

      And fierce is its every beat

For the bliss it wants and is fighting for—

      The bliss it has found so sweet

That unless thou hasten, Lord, my soul

      Will go down to sore defeat.

And Lord, Lord God, the soul must win,

      And the heart be strong, be brave,

To bear defeat. Yea, it must be!

      My mother cries from her grave

In prayer to thee—as she used to pray

      Her tortured child to save.

I hear her voice and I feel her hand,

      I see her silent tears,

And I know the word on her trembling lips,

      Though she has been dead for years;

There is no grave so deep and wide

      It can still a mother’s fears.

Lord, Lord, come thou to the battlefield

      Where my heart and my soul must fight;

For the soul is weak and the heart is strong,

      But the laurel must go to the Right;

There is but one way: It must be! Lord,

      Break thou my heart this night!

"A Prayer" printed in an unidentified publication, clipping courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA.