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.”