C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Annie Adams Fields (1834–1915)

MY heart is searching for thee,

And lost in longing for thy voice!

Voice that lies deeper than the permanent sea,

Deeper than thought,

Deeper than my own life.

Behold the child,

With yellow locks and aspect wild,

Gazing on naught;

With hands hung listless

And heart at strife,

Waiting, a young lost Israelite,

For angels’ food!

We are all children lost, of one great race,

Sighing for light,

Whom thou alone canst bless:

Give us manna, the promised good!

Show us thy face!

Else how should joy survive

The ebbing tide,

And hear the burden of the desert sea?

Where art thou, Guide?

Ah! where dost thou abide?

Within what heart or on what wave dost live?

Must man forever hunger till beyond his reach

Splendors of speech

Fall on his untaught ear?

Give me new light!

Give me new day!

“Who are ye

Thus crying for the light of a new day?

If wonders press on thee,

Delay thy feet,—delay!

But now

Fear clouds thy brow,

And seems to hunt thee through the wood.

Listen, delay!

I, the comforter, am near:

I am the loveliness of the earth;

I am the spring’s birth;

I sing on the solemn shore;

I am the presence at the dark, low door.”