The Winged Soul Poem by Emily Pfeiffer

MY soul is like some cage-born bird, that hath
A restless prescience—howsoever won—
Of a broad pathway leading to the sun,
With promptings of an oft-reprovèd faith
In sun-ward yearnings. Stricken though her breast,
And faint her wing with beating at the bars
Of sense, she looks beyond outlying stars,
And only in the Infinite sees rest.

Sad soul! If ever thy desire be bent
Or broken to thy doom, and made to share
The ruminant's beatitude,—content,—
Chewing the cud of knowledge, with no care
For germs of life within; then will I say,
Thou art not caged, but fitly stalled in clay!