The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 15. ...the flower was not given to me...

I loved this last stanza particularly. I shared Larcom’s name with a friend who shares our interest in poetry; he was astounded not to have seen her work before.

I know that love never is wasted,

Nor truth, nor the breath of a prayer;

And the thought that goes forth as a blessing

Must live, as a joy in the air.

20 minutes ago, Parker Owens said:

I loved this last stanza particularly. I shared Larcom’s name with a friend who shares our interest in poetry; he was astounded not to have seen her work before.

I know that love never is wasted,

Nor truth, nor the breath of a prayer;

And the thought that goes forth as a blessing

Must live, as a joy in the air.

 

Yes, thanks, Parker. At this point Lucy Larcom may be the greatest American poet with an 'forgotten' status, although universally admired in her times. I've read her work have a revival in the 1960s with the interest Feminists paid to her, but she needs to be read by everybody.  

And thank you for the internet archive version of some of her work. 

@Parker Owens Point your friend in the direction of "Similitudes" -- each Larcom prose-poem here reads like Transcendental scripture. The beauty is nearly over whelming, and I personally have to take these in small doses; they are amazing 

https://archive.org/details/similitudeslucy00larcrich