The Poet's Prayer

ONE deathless song though singing it be death!
O God, one song in the full-throated prime,
One song — delicious cadences, soft rhyme,
To mingle in men’s souls as breath in breath,
There linger as the sea voice lingereth
Forever in the sounding shell; to chime
With saddened thoughts and merry in their time,
Music immortal, beauty’s shibboleth,
Breeding sweet thought, begetting sweeter deed,
Stirring fine souls to finer enterprise
In every land and unto every age —
Who would not barter life for such a meed,
Content to live in heavenly harmonies
Spirit of an imperishable page ?

Eustace Cullinan.