May Such a Life Be Mine!
By Horatius Bonar
O, turn me, mold me, mellow me for use.
Pervade my being with Thy vital force,
That this else inexpressive life of mine
May become eloquent and full of power,
Impregnated with life and strength divine.
Put the bright torch of heaven into my hand,
That I may carry it aloft,
And win the eye of weary wanderers here below,
To guide their feet into the paths of peace.
I can not raise the dead,
Nor from this soil pluck precious dust,
Nor bid the sleeper wake,
Nor still the storm, nor bend the lightning back,
Nor muffle up the thunder,
Nor bid the chains fall from off creation's long enfettered limbs.
But I can live a life that tells on other lives,
And makes this world less full of anguish and of pain;
A life that, like the pebble dropped upon the sea,
Sends its wide circles to a hundred shores.
May such a life be mine!
Creator of true life, Thyself the life Thou givest,
Give Thyself, that Thou mayest dwell in me, and
I in Thee.
— Horatius Bonar.