Felicia Hemans

“ Prayer, tear, devotedness, that boon to gain—
'Tis but to write, with the heart's fiery rain,
Wild words on dust!"
Song! is the gift with thee?—I ask a lay,
Soft, fervent, deep, that will not pass away
From the still breast;
Fill'd with a tone—oh! not for deathless fame,
But a sweet haunting murmur of my name
Where it would rest!
And Song made answer: "It is not in me,
Though call'd immortal—though my power may be
All but divine:
A place of lonely brightness I can give;—
A changeless one, where thou with Love wouldst live. ”

“ To wear impatiently a secret chain,
To waste the untold riches of the heart—
No more!
Through long, long years to seek, to strive, to yearn
For human love, and never quench that thirst;
To pour the soul out, winning no return,
O'er fragile idols, by delusion nursed—
No more!
On things that fail us, reed by reed, to lean,
To mourn the changed, the far away, the dead;
To send our searching spirits through th' unseen,
Intensely questioning for treasures fled—
No more!
Words of triumphant music!—bear we on
The weight of life, the chain, th' ungenial air ”

“ To watch the sunset with the eyes we love,
And turn, and meet our own heart's answer there—
No more!
Words of Despair!—yet Earth's, all Earth's—the woe
Their passion breathes—the desolately deep! ”