Richard Watson Gilder, who died in 1909, and whose dream is now reality, wrote this beautiful prayer:
O Thou the Lord and Maker of life and
light!
Full heavy are the burdens that do weigh
Our spirits earthward, as through twilight
gray
We journey to the end and rest of night;
Tho well we know to the deep inward sight,
Darkness is but Thy shadow, and the day
Where Thou art never dies, but sends its
rays
Through the wide universe with restless
might.
O Lord of Light, steep Thou our souls in
Thee!
That when the daylight trembles into shade,
And falls the silence of mortality,
And all is done, we shall not be afraid,
But pass from light to light; from earth's
dull gleam
Into the very heart and heaven of our dream.
