The Monday Poem is brought to you by Professor Jim Gormley of the English Department. Enjoy!

A Prayer
Joseph Seamon 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,
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.
O God, give me words to make my dream-children live.

About This Poem

“A Prayer” was published in The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922), edited by James Weldon Johnson. Joseph Seamon Cotter, Jr. was born on February 2, 1861, in Nelson County, Kentucky. His collections of poetry include A Rhyming (New South Publishing, Co., 1895) andCollected Poems (Henry Harrison, 1938). He died in 1949.

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