Louis MacNeice - Prayer Before Birth

Prayer Before Birth

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
  club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
  with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
     on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
  to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
     in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
  when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
     my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
        my life when they murder by means of my
           hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
  old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
     frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
         waves call me to folly and the desert calls
           me to doom and the beggar refuses
              my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
  come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
  humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
     would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
        one face, a thing, and against all those
           who would dissipate my entirety, would
              blow me like thistledown hither and
                 thither or hither and thither
                    like water held in the
                       hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me

Louis MacNeice

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