Morning Prayer

Let me to-day do something that shall take A little sadness from the world’s vast store, And may I be so favoured as to make Of joy’s too scanty sum a little more. Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend; Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need, Or sin by silence when I should defend. However meagre be my worldly wealth, Let me give something that shall aid my kind – A word of courage, or a thought of health, Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find. Let me to-night look back across the span ‘Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say – Because of some good act to beast or man – “The world is better that I lived today.”