Prayer of the Year / Ethelwyn Wetherald

Prayer of the Year

Leave me Hope when I am old,
    Strip my joys from me,
Let November to the cold
    Bare each leafy tree;
Chill my lover, dull my friend,
    Only, while I grope
To the dark the silent end,
    Leave me Hope!

Blight my bloom when I am old,
    Bid my sunlight cease;
If it need be from my hold
    Take the hand of Peace.
Leave no springtime memory,
    But upon the slope
Of the days that are to be,
    Leave me Hope!

~~
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)
from The House of the Trees, and other poems, 1895

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Ethelwyn Wetherald biography