Another by my Great-Aunt.
Undefined
There is a beauty none can name,
Although it sears one like a flame.
It stabs the soul with poignant throe
Made half of joy and half of woe.
In vain I try its truth to phrase
But am left wordless with amaze.
I hear it when some haunting strain
Reverberates in harp's refrain.
Its sob is there above the roar
Of hurricane on wave-purled shore.
I feel its rhythmic rise and fall
When sea obeys the white moon's thrall.
And in the desert's quiet place
I glimpse its grandeur, see its trace.
In June's blue skies, on moonlit nights,
Is plainly read what truth indites.
God grant some voice may yet impart
Beauty that lifts yet breaks the heart.
By Laressa Cox McBurney
Published in Prairie Panorama in 1938
