Prayers Written at Vailima | Page 6

rest; if any awake, temper to them the dark hours of
watching; and when the day returns, return to us, our sun and comforter,
and call us up with morning faces and with morning hearts - eager to
labour - eager to be happy, if happiness shall be our portion - and if the
day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure it.
We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in the words of him to whom this
day is sacred, close our oblation.
FOR SELF-BLAME
LORD, enlighten us to see the beam that is in our own eye, and blind
us to the mote that is in our brother's. Let us feel our offences with our
hands, make them great and bright before us like the sun, make us eat

them and drink them for our diet. Blind us to the offences of our
beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take them out of our mouths
for ever. Let all here before Thee carry and measure with the false
balances of love, and be in their own eyes and in all conjunctures the
most guilty. Help us at the same time with the grace of courage, that we
be none of us cast down when we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our
happiness or our integrity: touch us with fire from the altar, that we
may be up and doing to rebuild our city: in the name and by the method
of him in whose words of prayer we now conclude.
FOR SELF-FORGETFULNESS
LORD, the creatures of thy hand, thy disinherited children, come
before Thee with their incoherent wishes and regrets: Children we are,
children we shall be, till our mother the earth hath fed upon our bones.
Accept us, correct us, guide us, thy guilty innocents. Dry our vain tears,
wipe out our vain resentments, help our yet vainer efforts. If there be
any here, sulking as children will, deal with and enlighten him. Make it
day about that person, so that he shall see himself and be ashamed.
Make it heaven about him, Lord, by the only way to heaven,
forgetfulness of self, and make it day about his neighbours, so that they
shall help, not hinder him.
FOR RENEWAL OF JOY
WE are evil, O God, and help us to see it and amend. We are good, and
help us to be better. Look down upon thy servants with a patient eye,
even as Thou sendest sun and rain; look down, call upon the dry bones,
quicken, enliven; recreate in us the soul of service, the spirit of peace;
renew in us the sense of joy.
End of the Project Gutenberg eText Prayers Written at Vailima
***
A Lowden Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson
Scanned and
proofed by David Price, email
[email protected]

A Lowden Sabbath Morn
I
THE clinkum-clank o' Sabbath bells
Noo to the hoastin' rookery
swells,
Noo faintin' laigh in shady dells,
Sounds far an' near,
An'
through the simmer kintry tells
Its tale o' cheer.
II
An' noo, to that melodious play,
A deidly awn the quiet sway -
A'
ken their solemn holiday,
Bestial an' human,
The singin' lintie on
the brae,
The restin' plou'man.
III
He, mair than a' the lave o' men,
His week completit joys to ken;

Half-dressed, he daunders out an' in,
Perplext wi' leisure;
An' his
raxt limbs he'll rax again
Wi' painfu' pleesure.
IV
The steerin' mither strang afit
Noo shoos the bairnies but a bit;
Noo
cries them ben, their Sinday shuit
To scart upon them,
Or sweeties
in their pouch to pit,
Wi' blessin's on them.
V
The lasses, clean frae tap to taes,
Are busked in crunklin' underclaes;

The gartened hose, the weel-filled stays,
The nakit shift,
A'
bleached on bonny greens for days,
An' white's the drift.
VI
An' noo to face the kirkward mile
The guidman's hat o' dacent style,

The blackit shoon, we noon maun fyle
As white's the miller:
A

waefu' peety tae, to spile
The warth o' siller.
VII
Our Marg'et, aye sae keen to crack,
Douce-stappin' in the stoury track,

Her emeralt goun a' kiltit back
Frae snawy coats,
White-ankled,
leads the kirkward pack
Wi' Dauvit Groats.
VIII
A thocht ahint, in runkled breeks,
A' spiled wi' lyin' by for weeks,

The guidman follows closs, an' cleiks
The sonsie misses;
His
sarious face at aince bespeaks
The day that this is.
IX
And aye an' while we nearer draw
To whaur the kirkton lies alaw,

Mair neebours, comin' saft an' slaw
Frae here an' there,
The thicker
thrang the gate, an' caw
The stour in air.
X
But hark! the bells frae nearer clang
To rowst the slaw, their sides
they bang
An' see! black coats a'ready thrang
The green kirkyaird;

And at the yett, the chestnuts spang
That brocht the laird.
XI
The solemn elders at the plate
Stand drinkin' deep the pride o' state:

The practised hands as gash an' great
As Lords o' Session;
The later
named, a wee thing blate
In their expression.
XII
The prentit stanes that mark the deid,
Wi' lengthened lip, the sarious
read;
Syne way a moraleesin' heid,
An then