There is a hungry longing in the soul, A craving sense of emptiness and pain, She may not satisfy nor yet control, For all the teeming world looks void and vain. No compensation in eternal spheres, She knows the loneliness of all her years. There is no comfort looking forth nor back, The present gives the lie to all her past. Will cruel time restore what she doth lack? Why was no shadow of this doom forecast? Ah! she hath played with many a keen-edged thing; Naught is too small and soft to turn and sting. In the unnatural glory of the hour, Exalted over time, and death, and fate, No earthly task appears beyond her power, No possible endurance seemeth great. She knows her misery and her majesty, And recks not if she be to live or die. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PET NAME by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING SONGS by RICHARD HENRY STODDARD FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A LITTLE BOY by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM I HAVE PRAYED by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS YOUTH AND CALM by MATTHEW ARNOLD |