"Prayer for Guidance: Westminster Chimes" by Monty Gilmer

In a familiar hymn of his, Isaac Watts prayed in part, "O God, our help in ages past, / Our hope for years to come; / Be thou our guide while life shall last, / And our eternal home."  Here is a poem of mine, a poem about praying for guidance, that first appeared in the 2001 edition of The Bluestone Review.  I have revised this poem of mine slightly since its first publication.


PRAYER FOR GUIDANCE: WESTMINSTER CHIMES
by Monty Gilmer

Hickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.

[Lord, through this hour
Be thou our guide,
So by thy power
No foot shall slide.]
"Like a monk, who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself" (Longfellow wrote),
So chimed the clock.

The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down;
Hickory dickory dock.

David the psalmist wrote,
"The meek will he guide in judgment,
And the meek will he teach his way."

John Hall, at one with that verse, wrote,
     "The simple thou dost teach and guide
Thy perfect ways to know,
And thou dost such instruct aright
As humble be and low."

The author of the Forty-eighth Psalm wrote,
"For this God is our God for ever and ever;
He will be our guide even unto death."

In chime with that, George Wither wrote,
     "For God in life will be our guide;
     And in our death, our God abide."

Quieter than a mouse,
Time runs; the clock still strikes,
After it plays "Westminster Chimes,"
After it prays for us.

Grandfather clock

(Photo by Quadell)