Emily Jane Pfeiffer

Deaf

NEVER to hear the chorus that awakes
The morning strive together in the grove;
Never to hear the plaining of the dove
Or babble of the childish glee that makes
The sick heart whole; or any voice that breaks
Beneath the tender burthen of its love;
Nor any strain of music that can move
The sense until with ravishment it aches.

If of old time one thus bereft, in vain
Had sought that pool an angel Pity stirred,
The human voice of Christ he had not heard;
But human pity, like the all-visiting rain,
May reach the grief that makes such faint appeal
And touching, soothe what only death can heal.