Scholastica's Faith
By Susan Fox - Sandusky, Ohio, USA - 1 March 2014
Brother, will you stay?
Your careless laugh as you say nay,
Provokes my soul beyond endurance.
Thus I shall beseech my Lord in prayer
To grant me, as He loves me, His mandate
Thwarting your plans to leave me on this night.
I feel my days slipping through my fingers
Shimmering down like silk cloth to the floor.
Knowing we have numbered days,
And no more than these, I can see my end.
Brother -- stay, you will.
I am not fearful of the days to come
When God will show me joy I've never known.
But this day's blessings surely are not bound
To end so soon. So I have begged the Lord
To keep you here, just one more night.
He will not say me nay and let you go.
Your countenance, so dear to me
Will never grace my eyes again, as now.
God knows I will pass soon, forever from this place
And needs must tuck your smile next to my heart
Once more, so I can hold it in the dreams
So few, left to me in my own bed.
Brother, shall we pray?
You see now how the Lord wills us to bide?
He'll soon be pleased to bless your eyes
With grace to spy the blessed angels
Lifting me to Him. But here and now,
Such rains will come (you'll see that, too)
That you will stay with me to pass the storm
Until the rainbow greets the sun at dawn.
Tomorrow you will go, singing with the lark.
Tonight the skies shall weep with joy for us.
Indeed, dear brother; be you glad as well
To stay this night in company with me,
In one voice to sing praises to our God!
Brother, you are good.
Your loving heart cannot but discern truth;
This sweet night will sustain us both, anon.