Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume II. Love. 1904. | | | | II. Love’s Nature | | Life | | Lizzie M. Little (d. 1909) |
| | | O LIFE! that mystery that no man knows, | |
| And all men ask: the Arab from his sands, | |
| The Cæsar’s self, lifting imperial hands, | |
| And the lone dweller where the lotus blows; | |
| O’er trackless tropics, and o’er silent snows, | 5 |
| She dumbly broods, that Sphinx of all the lands; | |
| And if she answers, no man understands, | |
| And no cry breaks the blank of her repose. | |
| But a new form rose once upon my pain, | |
| With grave, sad lips, but in the eyes a smile | 10 |
| Of deepest meaning dawning sweet and slow, | |
| Lighting to service, and no more in vain | |
| I ask of Life, “What art thou?”—as erewhile— | |
| For since Love holds my hand I seem to know! | | | | |
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