POPPY, WHITE. 
Sleep of the Heart. 
The bard has sung, God never form’d a soul 
Without its own peculiar mate, to meet 
Its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole 
Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete! 
But thousand evil things there are that hate 
To look on happiness; these hurt, impede, 
And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and fate, 
Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine and pant and bleed. 
And as the dove to far Palmyra flying, 
From where her native founts of Antioch beam, 
Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing, 
Lights sadly at the desert’s bitter stream— 
So many a soul, o’er life’s drear desert faring, 
Love’s pure, congenial spring unfound, unquaff’d, 
Suffers, recoils, then, thirsty and despairing 
Of what it would, descends and sips the nearest draught. 
Maria Brooks. 
