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Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  A Prayer for Charity

Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)

A Prayer for Charity

 
THOU, who taught’st the blind man’s night
To entertain a double light,
Thine and the day’s (and that thine too)—
The lame away his crutches threw;
The parchèd crust of leprosy        5
Returned into its infancy;
The dumb amazèd was to hear
His own unchained tongue strike his ear;
Thy powerful mercy did even chase
The devil from his usurped place,        10
Where Thou Thyself should dwell, not he—
O let Thy love our pattern be;
Let thy mercy teach one brother
To forgive and love another;
That copying Thy mercy here,        15
Thy goodness may hereafter rear
Our souls unto Thy glory, when
Our dust shall cease to be with men.