Beautiful Poem (Milton's Prayer of Patience)

Beautiful Poem (Milton's Prayer of Patience)

The following touching and inimitable beautiful lines have been erroneously attributed to John Milton. The New York Historical Magazine from which we copy them, accompanies them with the following explanatory remarks as to their origin:

"The simple fact is that those 'strains sublime' came to the world from no 'Oxford edition' of John Milton. They are the production of Mrs. Elizabeth Lloyd Howell, of Philadelphia. She wrote them in the days of her maidenhood, when she was known to her many home admirers as plain Elizabeth Lloyd. They were originally published in a little volume of poems, but Miss Lloyd sought no audience for her sweet strains beyond the select circle of Quakers in her native town: and out of that circle she was little known. John G. Whittier was one of her intimate friends. They were kindred spirits, and tattling rumor used to predict that the gifted Quakeress would yet merge her modest name in the world-known name of the poet of Amesbury. But Whittier, the meek man of might, the most earnest of American bards, the gentle girl in loving what is pure and right, the giant 'Great heart' in fighting what is wrong,—Whittier, the 'lone star' of the Quaker firmament, still dreams away life in the reveries of a bachelor. Elizabeth Lloyd is the happy wife of a Philadelphia merchant. Content with a few early efforts she has published but little of late. It is glory enough for her to have written one poem which the world will persist in attributing to the prince of poets."

I am old and blind!

Men point at me as smitten with God's frown;
Afflicted and deserted of my kind;

Yet am I not cast down.

I am weak, yet strong;

I murmur not that I no longer see;
Poor, old, and helpless; I the more belong,

Father Supreme! to Thee.

All-merciful One!

When men are furthest, then Thou art most near;
When friends pass by, my weaknesses to shun,

Thy chariot I hear.

Thy glorious face

Is leaning toward me; and its holy light
Shines in upon my lonely dwelling-place,

And there is no more night.

On my bended knee,

I recognize thy purpose, clearly shown;
My vision Thou hast dimmed, that I may see

Thyself,—Thyself alone.

I have naught to fear;

This darkness is the shadow of Thy wing;
Beneath it I am almost sacred; here

Can come no evil thing.

Oh! I seem to stand

Trembling, where foot of mortal ne’er hath been,
Wrapped in that radiance from the sinless land,

Which eye hath never seen!

Visions come and go:

Shapes of resplendent beauty round me thrown;
From angel lips I seem to hear the flow

Of soft and holy song.

It is nothing now,

When heaven is opening on my sightless eyes,
When airs from Paradise refresh my brow,

That earth in darkness lies.

In a purer clime

My being fills with rapture—waves of thought
Roll in upon my spirit—strains sublime

Break over me unsought.

Give me now my lyre!

I feel the stirrings of a gift divine—
Within my bosom glows unearthly fire,

Lit by no skill of mine.

Elizabeth Lloyd Howell

1:8, p. 1

9.21.1861

The New York Historical Magazine