PRAYER
Please rain moisture upon my desert! The soft sands and dry tumbleweeds reaching thoroughly so into the wilderness of my soul. What does it want when it burns my thoat in a song I do not know! It refuses to tell me its secret! Oh, how I pray for it to let me be its confident..!!
Please grace me with a beam of light through the single crack on the ceiling of my confinement. I have thought that my Spirit can soar utterly high. What is this thick darkness that has stolen its laughters, and why does it surrender so easily to the weight of sadness and silent suffering..??
Please go on and make me an offering to pacify the zealous gods and jealous goddesses up on the mountain tops: then at least my sorrow is justified. Like the silent dunes shift noiselessly along the movements of Fate, my sandals drag Time on the homeward bound: Let the wind stir the red sandstorm of greed and resentment; I am shredding my tears as the sacred sound of Faith resounding.
Incantation and spells and charms and tallismans: I surrender to the one who knows who I am, my Soul..!!
WILLIAM THOMPSON (1712-1766)
THE HAPPY LIFE
A book, a friend, a song, a glass,
A chaste, yet laughter-loving lass,
To mortals various joys impart,
Inform the sense, and warm the heart.
Thrice happy they, who careless laid
Beneath a kind-embowering shade,
With rosy wreaths their temples crown,
In rosy wine their sorrow drown.
Begone, ambition, riches, toys,
And splendid cares, and guilty joys--
Give me a book, a friend, a glass,
And a chaste, laughter-loving lass.
