prayer (n.)
- adjuration
- adoration
- appeal
- application
- asker
- beads
- beggar
- begging
- bid
- breviary
- call
- chaplet
- church
- clamor
- collect
- communion
- compline
- contemplation
- cry
- devotion
- duty
- entreaty
- evensong
- exercises
- grace
- imprecation
- intercession
- invocation
- litany
- liturgy
- matins
- meditation
- meeting
- none
- nones
- novena
- office
- orison
- petition
- petitioner
- plea
- pleading
- praying
- prime
- request
- revival
- rogation
- rosary
- service
- sext
- suit
- suitor
- supplicant
- supplication
- thanks
- thanksgiving
- tierce
- vesper
- vespers
- worship
Remote from man, with God he passed the days;
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.
Prayer ardent opens heaven.
Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer,
Childless with all her children, wants an heir;
To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store,
Or wanders heaven-directed to the poor.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here we will sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 't will be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.
Farewell! if ever fondest prayer
For other's weal avail'd on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air,
But waft thy name beyond the sky.
Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,
Four spend in prayer, the rest on Nature fix.
Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care
To grant, before we can conclude the prayer:
Preventing angels met it half the way,
And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.
Her eyes are homes of silent prayer.
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.
"What is good for a bootless bene?"
With these dark words begins my tale;
And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring
When prayer is of no avail?
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near.
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,—
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
Making their lives a prayer.
The prayer of Ajax was for light.
As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,
So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion,
Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee.
As still to the star of its worship, though clouded,
The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,
So dark when I roam in this wintry world shrouded,
The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.
The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,
The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again.
From every place below the skies
The grateful song, the fervent prayer,—
The incense of the heart,—may rise
To heaven, and find acceptance there.
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.
Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw;
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite;
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age.
Pleased with this bauble still, as that before,
Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.
