Unanswered
By Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)
Something compels me, somewhere.Yet I see
No clear command in Life's long mystery.
Oft have I flung myself beside my horse,
To drink the water from the roadside mire,
And felt the liquid through my being course,
Stilling the anguish of my thirst's desire.
A simple want; so easily allayed;
After the burning march; water and shade.
Also I lay against the loved one's heart
Finding fulfilment in that resting-place,
Feeling my longing, quenched, was but a part
Of nature's ceaseless striving for the race.
But now, I know not what they would with me;
Matter or Force or God, if Gods there be.
I wait; I question; Nature heeds me not.
She does but urge in answer to my prayer,
"Arise and do!"Alas, she adds not what;
"Arise and go!"Alas, she says not where!