A RUSSIAN'S PRAYER FOR HIS HORSE, BEFORE GOING INTO BATTLE, a poem

                    A PARAPHRASE

ALSO for these that with us bear
     The heat and burden of the day,
These humble creatures of Thy care,
     O Merciful, we pray.

Their guileless lives they offer, Lord,
     To aid their country in distress.
Grant to their virtue the reward
     Of Thy great tenderness.

Have pity also, Lord, on these—
     On these, so docile, faithful, meek!
We supplicate upon our knees
     For them that cannot speak.

By Florence Earle Coates. Published in the Friends' Intelligencer (25 December 1915) and in Poems (1916) Volume II.