Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
I. The Divine Element(God, Christ, the Holy Spirit)The Universal Prayer
Alexander Pope (16881744)F
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!
Who all my sense confined
To know but this, that thou art good,
And that myself am blind;
To see the good from ill;
And, binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will:
Or warns me not to do,
This, teach me more than hell to shun,
That, more than heaven pursue.
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives,
To enjoy is to obey.
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round:
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe.
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, O, teach my heart
To find that better way!
And impious discontent
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy goodness lent.
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.
Since quickened by thy breath;
O, lead me wheresoe’er I go,
Through this day’s life or death!
All else beneath the sun,
Thou knowest if best bestowed or not,
And let thy will be done.
Whose altar, earth, sea, skies,
One chorus let all Being raise,
All Nature incense rise!