For me there are no cities, no proud halls,
No storied paintings—nor the chiseled snow
Of statues; never have I seen the glow
Of sunset die upon deathless walls
Of the pure Parthenon; no soft light falls
For me in dim cathedrals, where the low,
Still seas of supplication ebb and flow;
No dream of Rome my longing soul enthralls.
But oh, to gaze in a long tranced delight
On Venice rising from the purple sea!
Oh, but to feel one golden evening pale
On that famed island from whose lonely height
Dark Sappho sank in burning ecstasy!
But once—but once—to hear the nightingale!
Yet am I not for pity. This blue sea
Burns with the opal’s deeps and splendid fires
At sunset; these tall firs are classic spires
Of chaste design and marvelous symmetry
That lift to burnished skies. Let pity be
For him who never felt the mighty lyres
Of Nature shake him thro’ with great desires.
These pearl-topped mountains shining silently—
They are God’s sphinxes and God’s pyramids;
These dim-aisled forests His cathedrals, where
The pale nun Silence tiptoes, velvet shod,
And Prayer, kneels with tireless, parted lips;
And thro’ the incense of this holy air
Trembling—I have come face to face with God.
“Yet Am I Not for Pity” printed and signed by Ella Higginson. Image copyright belongs to the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham Washington.
This poem appears in the December 1897 issue McClure’s Magazine, as well as in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).
On Higginson’s self-designed grave-marker in Bayview Cemetery, Bellingham, Washington, the following is engraved:
“YET AM I NOT FOR PITY—
TREMBLING I HAVE COME FACE TO FACE
WITH GOD.”
ELLA HIGGINSON, POET-WRITER