Sarah Helen (Power) Whitman (1803–1878)

IF thy sad heart, pining for human love,

In its earth solitude grew dark with fear,

Lest the high Sun of Heaven itself should prove

Powerless to save from that phantasmal sphere

Wherein thy spirit wandered—if the flowers

That pressed around thy feet seemed but to bloom

In lone Gethsemanes, through starless hours,

When all who loved had left thee to thy doom:—

Oh, yet believe that in that hollow vale

Where thy soul lingers, waiting to attain

So much of Heaven’s sweet grace as shall avail

To lift its burden of remorseful pain,—

My soul shall meet thee and its heaven forego

Till God’s great love on both one hope, one Heaven bestow.