The speaker in Amy Levy’s prayer feels doomed to a life without love. She accepts that on this earth she will never experience the “claspt hands and lips that kiss,” so she asks God to let her imagine those joys instead. There is no anger in her voice—just a quiet, weary recognition of her fate. She compares her loneliness to lying in a dark tomb, yet insists she is not afraid. God’s reasons are hidden from her, and she makes no complaint. What she wants is permission to dream: to know the sweetness of love in her mind while avoiding the real-life suffering that comes with it. The mood is somber and intimate, but also softly hopeful. The poem doesn’t fight against loneliness; it makes peace with it by turning inward to a private, imagined world where bliss can exist without pain.
A Prayer — Summary
Since that I may not have Love on this side the grave, Let me imagine Love. Since not mine is the bliss Of 'claspt hands and lips that kiss,' Let me in dreams it prove. What tho' as the years roll No soul shall melt to my soul, Let me conceive such thing; Tho' never shall entwine Loving arms around mine Let dreams caresses bring. To live--it is my doom-- Lonely as in a tomb, This cross on me was laid; My God, I know not why; Here in the dark I lie, Lonely, yet not afraid. It has seemed good to Thee Still to withhold the key Which opes the way to men; I am shut in alone, I make not any moan, Thy ways are past my ken. Yet grant me this, to find The sweetness in my mind Which I must still forego; Great God which art above, Grant me to image Love,-- The bliss without the woe.