Explore "Finding" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Out of great darkness and wide wastes of silence, / Long loneliness, and slow untasted years, / Came a slow filling of the empty places, / A slow, sweet lighting of forgotten faces, / A smiling under tears.
A light of dawn that filled the brooding heaven, / A warmth that kindled all the earth and air, / A thrilling tender music, floating, stealing, / A fragrance of unnumbered flowers revealing / A sweetness new and fair.
After the loss of love where I had sought him, / After the anguish of the empty shrine, / Came a warm joy from all the hearts around me, / A feeling that some perfect strength had found me, / Touch of the hand divine.
I followed Love to his intensest centre, / And lost him utterly when fastened there; / I let him go and ceased my selfish seeking, / Turning my heart to all earth's voices speaking, / And found him everywhere.
Love like the rain that falls on just and unjust, / Love like the sunshine, measureless and free, / From each to all, from all to each, to live in; / And, in the world's glad love so gladly given, / Came heart's true love to me!