Ah...tis
Friday again and time for poetic thoughts. A reprise from the past.
One of
my favorite poems is Edward Rowland Sill's The Fool's Prayer. Perhaps you'll
like it too. He was born in 1841 and died in 1887.
THE FOOL'S PRAYER
The royal feast was done; the King
Sought
some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel
now, and make for us a prayer!"
The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And
stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the
painted grin he wore.
He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon
the Monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful
to me, a fool!
"No pity, Lord, could change the
heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but
Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
"'T is not by guilt the onward sweep
Of
truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'Tis by our follies that so long
We hold the
earth from heaven away.
"These clumsy feet, still in the
mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we
thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.
"The ill-timed truth we might have
kept--
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to
say--
Who knows how grandly it had rung!
"Our faults no tenderness should ask.
The
chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders -- oh, in shame
Before
the eyes of heaven we fall.
"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men
crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be
merciful to me, a fool!"
The room was hushed; in silence rose
The
King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be
merciful to me, a fool!"
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