Go up and watch the new-born rill
 Just trickling from its mossy bed,
 Streaking the heath-clad hill
 With a bright emerald thread.

Canst thou her bold career foretell,
 What rocks she shall o'erleap or rend,
 How far in Ocean's swell
 Her freshening billows send?

Perchance that little brook shall flow
 The bulwark of some mighty realm,
 Bear navies to and fro
 With monarchs at their helm.

Or canst thou guess, how far away
 Some sister nymph, beside her urn
 Reclining night and day,
 'Mid reeds and mountain fern,

Nurses her store, with thine to blend
 When many a moor and glen are past,
 Then in the wide sea end
 Their spotless lives at last?

E'en so, the course of prayer who knows?
 It springs in silence where it will,
 Springs out of sight, and flows
 At first a lonely rill:

But streams shall meet it by and by
 From thousand sympathetic hearts,
 Together swelling high
 Their chant of many parts.

Unheard by all but angel ears
 The good Cornelius knelt alone,
 Nor dreamed his prayers and tears
 Would help a world undone.

The while upon his terraced roof
 The loved Apostle to his Lord
 In silent thought aloof
 For heavenly vision soared.

Far o'er the glowing western main
 His wistful brow was upward raised,
 Where, like an angel's train,
 The burnished water blazed.

The saint beside the ocean prayed,
 This soldier in his chosen bower,
 Where all his eye surveyed
 Seemed sacred in that hour.

To each unknown his brother's prayer,
 Yet brethren true in dearest love
 Were they--and now they share
 Fraternal joys above.

There daily through Christ's open gate
 They see the Gentile spirits press,
 Brightening their high estate
 With dearer happiness.

What civic wreath for comrades saved
 Shone ever with such deathless gleam,
 Or when did perils braved
 So sweet to veterans seem?