Ordinary guy in an ordinary life living for an extraordinary God

Ordinary guy living an ordinary life for an extaordinary God

Monday, July 7, 2014

A Fools Prayer

This is one of my favorite poems and one that I have some how been able to retain in my brain fairly accurately since high school. Would it be that we, like the proud king, be moved by such a prayer, church leaders and nation leaders as well.

From the pen of Edward Rowland Sill,

The Fools Prayer.

The royal feast was done; the king sought some new sport to banish care, and to his jester cried "Sir Fool, Kneel now, and make for us a prayer! "

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool.

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
Tis our follies that so long
We hold earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go on crushing blossoms with out end
These hard, well meaning hands we thrust among the heartstrings of a friend.

"The ill timed truth we might have kept-
Who knows how sharp it peirced and stung
The word we had not sensed to say-
Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask.
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; But thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low
"Be merciful to me, a fool! "

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