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THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Mrs. Vernon DeMars 
 
PRAYER 
 
 BY CHARLES KELLOGG 
 FIELD :: WITH A FORE 
 WORD BYDAVID STARR 
 JORDAN 
 
 THE BOOK CLUB OF 
 CALIFORNIA :: IO2I 
 
Phi Beta Kappa poem, Stanford University, 
 October 13th, 1906. 
 
 GIFT 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 This exquisite poem tells the story of a crisis of 
 feeling in the poet s own career. It touches the 
 experience of thousands of sincere and thought 
 ful youths who in their studies reach what seems 
 to be the parting of the ways. The University 
 deals with affual truth, with the Universe as it 
 is, not with opinion however plausible or tradi 
 tion however venerable. ( ( The winds of freedom" 
 blow on its heights; whatever is not fastened 
 on the ( ( solid ground of Nature "is swept away. 
 The student finds that much he has revered as 
 faith is only the debris of his grandfather s 
 science. 
 
 First of many problems is that of the meaning 
 of prayer. Is it true that by faith he can move 
 
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mountains, wring rain from the steel-blue sky, 
 or make one hair black or white ? Or are its 
 functions that of a boat at its moorings, in which 
 he may draw himself to the shore, the shore re 
 maining immovable? Or must he merely turn 
 away as from another of "the faded fancies of 
 an elder world?" 
 
 In this condition of bewilderment our poet 
 while a student at Stanford University met a 
 young man old in the path of wisdom Dr. 
 Wilbur Wilson Thoburn, a professor of Zoology. 
 Whether prayer would or would not change one 
 atom in the physical universe did not concern 
 Thoburn. His conception like that of Jesus was 
 that prayer is an individual act, to be per 
 formed in one s own closet, for the time being 
 his temple. Prayer he interpreted in terms of 
 life, the expression of some noble purpose. If our 
 prayer aims to realize hope in action, it will be 
 answered. Prayer is not a plea to change the 
 
world about us, but our own resolve to concen- 
 secrate ourselves to our loftiest duty in the affairs 
 oflife. 
 
 Wisdom is knowing what one ought to do 
 next; virtue, doing it; religion, our conception 
 of the reason why right action is better than 
 wrong, and prayer, the core of our endeavor. 
 
(( Ah ivell-a-day, uoh at evil looks 
 
 Had I from old and young; 
 Instead of the Cross the albatross 
 
 About my neck was hung; . . . 
 I looked to Heaven and tried to pray, 
 
 But or ever a prayer hadgusht, 
 A wicked whisper came and made 
 
 My heart as dry as dust. " 
 
There is a season of high-hearted song, 
 
 The weal glory of the greening spring, 
 When life stirs up through music, pulsing strong 
 
 Toward the hushed wonder of its blossoming; 
 No meditation softens this clear tone 
 
 That rings with newly -wakened consciousness; 
 The tingling upward impulse asks alone 
 
 Expression, and the song is purposeless 
 Save that perhaps some thrill of mystery 
 
 Lies at the roots of life, an unguessed hour 
 Felt in the lifting leaves, a prophecy 
 
 Locked in the promise of the folded flower. 
 As yet along the stalks the tender green 
 
 That the fond roots first ushered to the light 
 Remains, although an urgency unseen 
 
 Compels division to release the slight 
 
Brave color of the buds that must have way; 
 And where the new leaves spread old leaves 
 appear, 
 
 Caught in the stalks uprising where they lay- 
 Dead straws that linger from the parent year. 
 
 Over the hills the free winds blow, 
 The lithe stalks bend and the old 
 
 leaves go, 
 And the young plants shiver a little 
 
 as though 
 They miss the touch they are wont 
 
 to know, 
 And a sense, somehow, of loss and 
 
 wrong 
 Bears heavily at the heart of song. 
 
Who knows the number (I remember one) 
 
 To whose glad youth the Springtime has up he Id 
 Her green and silver mirror in the sun, 
 
 How many musings it has paralleled 
 When thought intruded on the wordless joy 
 
 The field-lark set to music; I have known 
 How in new leaves and wind- swept straws a boy 
 
 May see reflected his dear faith outgrown. 
 For who shall measure what minutest change 
 
 Can stiffen stem and bud or harden thought 
 From tender trust to question, and estrange 
 
 Old leaf and new } home and the youth it taught? 
 Chance breeze, chance word what grows that 
 may escape it? 
 
 Light breeze orwind, light word or argument, 
 Men s faith is as environment shall shape it, 
 
 Trees are but twigs continuously bent. 
 Thus it has been that simple faith in prayer, 
 
Taking the open road, was blown away 
 By winds of freedom, taken unaware 
 In shining weather and the mind swept bare 
 
 Of confidence and any will to pray. 
 So many hands there are to rend 
 
 The masonry of faith apart! 
 Books unexplored, some rare new friend 
 Whose trust already has had end, 
 
 Who cannot find it in his heart 
 To beg of what he cannot see, 
 To dare inform Infinity; 
 So many hands destructive, and so few 
 To rear upon the ruined heap a new 
 Abiding comfort! All too long remain 
 The fragments, never wholly set again; 
 The winds of doubting blow the dust 
 Of the old comfortable trust 
 Whereto there stretches no return 
 Save only as the mind may learn 
 Some satisfaction to discern. 
 
To such a mind a voice may reach, 
 In class-time or some graver day, 
 
 Whose calm authority of speech 
 
 Shall fill an eager ear and teach 
 A troubled spirit how to pray; 
 
 A voice like one this much we know: 
 
 It sank in silence years ago 
 
 When he was put from sight and sound 
 
 Beneath the still sequestered ground 
 
 Where sweeps, as in a long caress, 
 
 The pepper-branches tenderness 
 
 So much we know, howe er we guess! 
 
 Voice unf or gotten! once your message came 
 Set in a quiet sentence; others heard 
 Doubtless no more than word trail after word 
 Along the dry course of the droning hour 
 As in a drowsy shower 
 
Drop follows drop along the window-frame; 
 
 Yet one heart there was stirred 
 
 As by its name 
 
 Called suddenly at night, aflame 
 
 Leaped up with power 
 
 Upon the instant to illume 
 
 Its path s impenetrable gloom. 
 
 \ 
 
 Your words were like the ocean s utterance 
 
 Whose deep illimitable swell 
 Has uuaked a haughty assonance 
 
 Within the hollow of a shell, 
 An echo yearning to set free 
 Its understanding of the sea 
 And able only to impart 
 A hint of what is in its heart. 
 
"Prayer, if it be such deep desire 
 
 For good that it shall realize 
 Its hope in action, may aspire 
 
 To answer and not otherwise. " 
 So spoke the voice, and prayer became 
 A force, no more an emptied name ! 
 And over Faith s inverted cup 
 A gleaming Grail was lifted up. 
 No mere petition could express 
 That inward prayer for righteousness, 
 Nor any supplicating word 
 Voice the diviner speech unheard; 
 For life itself was made the only prayer 
 
 And life itself the only answer gained; 
 Unlimited the soul s expression there, 
 
 Unlimited the heart s desire attained! 
 The eager stem shall find its hour 
 Of answer in the opened flower 
 
And the flower s rapt unfolding lead 
 To rich fulfilment in the seed; 
 Man s self-dependent will to be 
 In tune with God s high harmony, 
 Right thinking ever turned to act, 
 Shall make unceasing prayer a fact 
 And prayer, thus answered, shall allow 
 A larger faith and teach it how 
 To find its heaven here and now! 
 
f That self-same moment I could pray 
 And from my neck so free 
 
 The albatross fell off and sank 
 Like lead into the sea. " 
 
Three hundred and thirty copies printed 
 by Edwin and Robert Grabhornfor The 
 Book Club of California in May, 1921. 
 This is copy number $ 
 
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