A Prayer in Old Age

Bring no expectance of a heaven unearned

No hunger for beatitude to be

Until the lesson of my life is learned

Through what Thou didst for me.

Bring no assurance of redeemed rest

No intimation of awarded grace

Only contrition, cleavingly confessed

To Thy forgiving face.

I ask one world of everlasting loss

In all I am, that other world to win.

My nothingness must kneel below Thy Cross.

There let new life begin.

~Siegfried Sassoon