THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. What conscience dictates to be done, This teach me more than hell to shun, What blessings thy free bounty gives, For God is paid when man receives, - Yet not to earth's contracted span Let not this weak, unknowing hand If I am right, thy grace impart Save me alike from foolish pride, At aught thy wisdom has denied, Teach me to feel another's woe; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me. 109 110 SIR PATRICK SPENCE Mean though I am, not wholly so, me, This day be bread and peace my lot; Thou know'st if best bestowed or not, To Thee, whose temple is all space, SIR PATRICK SPENCE. THE king sits in Dunfermline town, O, up and spake an eldern knight, – The king has written a braid letter, "To Noroway, to Noroway, 'T is thou maun bring her hame." SIR PATRICK SPENCE. The first line that Sir Patrick read, "O, wha is this has done this deed, This ill deed done to me; To send me out, this time o' the year, To sail upon the sea? "Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet, Our ship must sail the faem; The king's daughter of Noroway, 'Tis we must fetch her hame. "Make ready, make ready, my merry men all! Our gude ship sails the morn." Now, ever alake, my master dear, I fear a deadly storm. "Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moon Wi' the old moon in her arm; And I fear, I fear, my dear master, That we will come to harm.” They hadna sailed a league, a league, A league but barely three, 111 When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud, And gurly grew the sea. The anchors brak, and the topmasts lap, It was sik a deadly storm; And the waves came o'er the broken ship, Till all her sides were torn. 112 SIR PATRICK SPENCE. 'O, where will I get a gude sailor “O, here am I, a sailor gude, He hadna gone a step, a step, A step but barely ane, When a bout flew out of our goodly ship, “Gae, fetch a web o' the silken claith, Another o' the twine, And wap them into our ship's side, And let nae the sea come in.” They fetched a web o' the silken claith, Another o' the twine, And they wapped them round that gude ship's side And still the sea came in. O, laith, laith, were our gude Scots lords To weet their cork-heeled shoon! But lang or a' the play was played, And mony was the feather-bed And mony was the gude lord's son, LUCY. The ladies wrang their fingers white, A' for the sake of their true loves, O, lang, lang, may the ladies sit, And lang, lang, may the maidens sit, O, forty miles off Aberdeen, 'Tis fifty fathoms deep, And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spence, 113 LUCY.-Wordsworth. SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways A maid whom there were none to praise A violet by a mossy stone |