Sometimes I kneel when twilight falls,
And try to ask the Lord
To lean one moment from above
And hear my trembling word;
But scarcely have I knelt, when quick
Springs that old aching care,
And with a tremble on my lips,
I pray that other prayer.
With that old choke within my throat,
Those old hot, useless tears,
With which I used to kneel and say
That prayer in other years;
With the same beating of my heart,
Bowed by the same fierce care,
And the old tremble on my lips,
I pray that other prayer.
It was not answered―nay; and I
Now would not have it so,
And that is why God heard it not,
And it was best, yet, oh!
So often in that sky-lit room
With walls so cold and bare,
With that poor tremble on my lips,
I prayed that other prayer!
And so, tho’ it was answered not,
And old desire is dead,
I cannot kneel these happier nights
Beside this other bed,
But the quick choke comes to my throat,
Vibrant to that old care,
And ere I know, with trembling lips,
I’ve prayed that other prayer!
“That Other Prayer” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).