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Home  »  Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century  »  Emily H. Hickey (1845–1924)

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Lyrics and Verse Tales. III. “M.” to “N.”

Emily H. Hickey (1845–1924)

HOW sweet are you to me? As sweet

As dewy turf to wayworn feet;

As cooling draught of water given

To lips athirst from morn to even;

As bread and wine at Sacrament

To soul of blessed penitent.

How true are you to me? As true

As swallow to the roadless blue,

When spring hath wakened in his breast

Life’s rapture of the brooding west:

Or as the sea in his response

To that still call which is the moon’s.

How near are you to me? As near

As to the earth her atmosphere;

As warp to woof where web is wove;

As strength to hope; as light to love;

As my own blood, my flesh, my breath;

As near as life, as near as death.

How far are you from me? As far

As glory of the morning-star

From Lucifer; as far as bliss

Of comradeship from Judas’ kiss;

As day from night: indeed, more far

From me than heaven from hell you are.