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Home  »  The Book of Sorrow  »  Emma Lazarus (1849–1887)

Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.

Epochs. vii. Compensation

Emma Lazarus (1849–1887)

’TIS not alone that black and yawning void

That makes her heart ache with this hungry pain,

But the glad sense of life hath been destroyed,

The lost delight may never come again.

Yet myriad serious blessings with grave grace

Arise on every side to fill their place….

The nameless charm about all things hath died,

Subtle as aureole round a shadow’s head,

Cast on the dewy grass at morning-tide;

Yet though the glory and the joy be fled,

’Tis much her own endurance to have weighed,

And wrestled with God’s angels, unafraid.