PRAYER
To feel once more the fresh cold touch of wintry air Across my face.
While eyes are feasting on that spire in flaming West With sweet rapture.
To be once more among my own folk, pale and fair, Grant me this grace O Lord! Yet there, before I die, may my gaze rest, To recapture The spirit of that oft reviled race and land Which still keeps more Than wondrous harmony, with feelings ever mine.
Give me, 0 Lord, Once more that joy, of setting foot, with helpful hand, On England's shore!
To feel the mild caress of Northern soft sunshine, Not like a sword Of tropic fire, that stabs to death life's feeble core!
In peaceful scene, To listen, once again, to robin, sparrow, lark!
No wild, mad beast To break the dark night's calm, with cruel, shatt'ring roar.
Let me have seen, Before the final silence, or eternal dark, (A farewell feast To senses sate with riot-growth of clammy earth) An English spring!
Yet once more let me see — God grant me this favour!
A country lane, The new green on the hedge, the young leaf in its birth, And feel the sting Of much a sharper breeze than here, its full flavour, In a soft rain!
Belgian Congo, May, 1943.
M. H. C. WILLEMS.
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