Emily Pfeiffer

1827-1890 / England

The Soul’s Prayer -

OUR souls are natives of the Infinite,
And learn with toil to breathe the air of Time;
Our early loves and sorrows are sublime
In sense of durance and unfettered might.
Kind Nature take us, weary ere the night
As children are, and from this alien clime
Shelter, and let us dream its morning prime
Fans our worn spirits with its fresh delight.

But if the scorner Time that makes our woe
Prove very lord of us, then on thy breast
Quell once for all this feverish thirst to know,
This hungry love, the traitor's bitterest jest;
End on thy mother's heart these pangs too slow
To kill; let sleep be death since that is best.
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