Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

By Sonnets. II. Nirvana

Mathilde Blind (1841–1896)

DIVEST thyself, O Soul, of vain desire!

Bid hope farewell, dismiss all coward fears;

Take leave of empty laughter, emptier tears,

And quench, for ever quench, the wasting fire

Wherein this heart, as in a funeral pyre,

Aye burns, yet is consumed not. Years on years,

Moaning with memories in thy maddened ears—

Let at thy word, like refluent waves, retire.

Enter thy soul’s vast realm as Sovereign Lord,

And like that angel with the flaming sword,

Wave off life’s clinging hands. Then chains will fall

From the poor slave of self’s hard tyranny—

And Thou, a ripple rounded by the sea,

In rapture lost be lapped within the All.