Louis Macniece

“for you are alive beyond question, like the dazzle on the sea my darling”

“PRAYER BEFORE BIRTHI am not yet born; O hear me.Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footedghoul 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 meWith water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talkto me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white lightin the back of my mind to guide me.I am not yet born; forgive meFor the sins that in me the world shall commit, my wordswhen they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,my life when they murder by means of myhands, my death when they live me.I am not yet born; rehearse meIn the parts I must play and the cues I must take whenold men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountainsfrown at me, lovers laugh at me, the whitewaves call me to folly and the desert callsme to doom and the beggar refusesmy 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 Godcome near me.I am not yet born; O fill meWith strength against those who would freeze myhumanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,would make me a cog in a machine, a thing withone face, a thing, and against all thosewho would dissipate my entirety, wouldblow me like thistledown hither andthither or hither and thitherlike water held in thehands would spill me.Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.Otherwise kill me.”