George Macdonald, The Prayer of an Old Writer

LORD, what I once had done with youthful might,
Had I been from the first true to the truth,
Grant me, now old, to do–with better sight,
And humbler heart, if not the brain of youth;
So wilt thou, in thy gentleness and ruth,
Lead back thy old soul, by the path of pain,
Round to his best–young eyes and heart and brain.

George Macdonald, Diary of an Old Soul