| Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Sonnets.
II. To Nature (II) | | By Emily Pfeiffer (1841–1890) |
| | | DREAD Force, in whom of old we loved to see | |
| A nursing mother, clothing with her life | |
| The seeds of Love divine,—with what sore strife | |
| We hold or yield our thoughts of Love and thee! | |
| Thou art not “calm,” but restless as the ocean, | 5 |
| Filling with aimless toil the endless years— | |
| Stumbling on thought, and throwing off the spheres, | |
| Churning the Universe with mindless motion. | |
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| Dull fount of joy, unhallowed source of tears, | |
| Cold motor of our fervid faith and song, | 10 |
| Dead, but engendering life, love, pangs, and fears, | |
| Thou crownedst thy wild work with foulest wrong | |
| When first thou lightedst on a seeming goal, | |
| And darkly blundered on man’s suffering soul. | | | | |
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