O Day Of Peace

A prayer for peace unfolds through four stanzas that move from longing to vision. The opening lines admit that peace only "dimly shines" through human hopes and dreams, and ask God to guide us toward justice, truth, and love, delivered from selfish schemes. The second stanza pictures swords of hate falling from our hands and hearts released from envy, until the world sees Christ's promised reign. Then the imagery shifts to Isaiah's peaceable kingdom: the wolf dwelling with the lamb, the fierce no longer devouring the small, beasts and cattle grazing calmly, and a little child leading them all. The final stanza widens the circle until enemies learn to love and all creatures find their true accord, closing with the hope that the earth shall know the Lord. The song's strength is its restraint; it does not demand peace but asks for it, holding together personal repentance and cosmic restoration. The line about the child leading them all keeps the vision tender rather than triumphant, and the repeated future tense — then shall, shall see, shall be fulfilled — makes the whole piece an act of patient trust rather than a claim that peace has already arrived.