A Prayer by Joseph S. Cotter, Jr. James Weldon Johnson, ed. 1922. The Book of American Negro Poetry

James Weldon Johnson, ed. (1871–1938). The Book of American Negro Poetry. 1922.

A Prayer

Joseph S. Cotter, Jr.


AS I lie in bed,
Flat on my back;
There passes across my ceiling
An endless panorama of things—
Quick steps of gay-voiced children,	5
Adolescence in its wondering silences,
Maid and man on moonlit summer’s eve,
Women in the holy glow of Motherhood,
Old men gazing silently thru the twilight
Into the beyond.	10
O God, give me words to make my dream-children live.