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Longing

Emma Lazarus

Look westward o’er the steaming rain-washed slopes,
  Now satisfied with sunshine, and behold
Those lustrous clouds, as glorious as our hopes,
  Softened with feathery fleece of downy gold,
  In all fantastic, huddled shapes uprolled,
Floating like dreams, and melting silently,
In the blue upper regions of pure sky.

The eye is filled with beauty, and the heart
  Rejoiced with sense of life and peace renewed;
And yet at such an hour as this, upstart
  Vague myriad longing, restless, unsubdued,
  And causeless tears from melancholy mood,
Strange discontent with earth’s and nature’s best,
Desires and yearnings that may find no rest.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Vol.I, Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic
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