1
Father of Light! great God of Heaven!
Hear’st thou the accents
of despair?
Can guilt like man’s be e’er
forgiven?
Can vice atone for crimes
by prayer?
2
Father of Light, on thee I call!
Thou see’st my soul
is dark within;
Thou, who canst mark the sparrow’s
fall,
Avert from me the death of
sin.
3
No shrine I seek, to sects unknown;
Oh, point to me the path of
truth!
Thy dread Omnipotence I own;
Spare, yet amend, the faults
of youth.
4
Let bigots rear a gloomy fane,
Let Superstition hail the
pile,
Let priests, to spread their sable reign,
With tales of mystic rites
beguile.
5
Shall man confine his Maker’s sway
To Gothic domes of mouldering
stone?
Thy temple is the face of day;
Earth, Ocean, Heaven thy boundless
throne.
6
Shall man condemn his race to Hell,
Unless they bend in pompous
form?
Tell us that all, for one who fell,
Must perish in the mingling
storm?
7
Shall each pretend to reach the skies,
Yet doom his brother to expire,
Whose soul a different hope supplies,
Or doctrines less severe inspire?
8
Shall these, by creeds they can’t
expound,
Prepare a fancied bliss or
woe?
Shall reptiles, groveling on the ground,
Their great Creator’s
purpose know?
9
Shall those, who live for self alone,
Whose years float on in daily
crime—
Shall they, by Faith, for guilt atone,
And live beyond the bounds
of Time?
10
Father! no prophet’s laws I seek,—
Thy laws in Nature’s
works appear;—
I own myself corrupt and weak,
Yet will I pray, for
thou wilt hear!
11
Thou, who canst guide the wandering star,
Through trackless realms of
aether’s space;
Who calm’st the elemental war,
Whose hand from pole to pole
I trace:
12
Thou, who in wisdom plac’d me here,
Who, when thou wilt, canst
take me hence,
Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere,
Extend to me thy wide defence.
13
To Thee, my God, to thee I call!
Whatever weal or woe betide,
By thy command I rise or fall,
In thy protection I confide.
14.
If, when this dust to dust’s restor’d,
My soul shall float on airy
wing,
How shall thy glorious Name ador’d
Inspire her feeble voice to
sing!
15
But, if this fleeting spirit share
With clay the Grave’s
eternal bed,
While Life yet throbs I raise my prayer,
Though doom’d no more
to quit the dead.
16
To Thee I breathe my humble strain,
Grateful for all thy mercies
past,
And hope, my God, to thee again [ii]
This erring life may fly at
last.
December 29, 1806.
[Footnote 1: These stanzas were
first published in Moore’s ’Letters and
Journals of Lord Byron’, 1830, i. 106.]
[Footnote i:
Shalt these who live for self alone,
Whose years fleet on in daily
crime—
Shall these by Faith for guilt atone,
Exist beyond the bounds of
Time?
[’MS. Newstead’.]]
[Footnote ii:
My hope, my God, in thee again
This erring life will fly at last.
[’MS. Newstead’]]
