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.