| Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Sonnets.
VIII. Gordon | | By Emily Pfeiffer (1841–1890) |
| | The Unrequitable
GONE, with the toil of nigh twelve months undone, | |
| Cut from thy grasp by sloth and treachery, | |
| When friendly hands across that sandy sea | |
| To reach thee at thy post had all but won. | |
| Gone when thy hope was high as Egypt’s sun, | 5 |
| From sting of failure and all charge set free, | |
| A man no king was great enough to fee— | |
| God’s Servant, taking wage of Him alone. | |
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| Gordon, we may not give thee so much earth | |
| As might suffice thy bones for resting-place, | 10 |
| But must remain thy debtors in our dearth; | |
| Souls pure as thine are channels of God’s grace, | |
| And all our famished lives must grow more worth | |
| When such have dwelt among us for a space. | | | | |
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