“I can truthfully affirm that I never learned anything which would now be considered worth learning until I had done with them all (governesses) and started foraging for myself. I did have a few months of boarding-school at the end, and a very good school for its day it was, but it left no lasting impression on my mind.”
~Ada Cambridge Cross

Ada Cambridge Cross was a British Australian writer born on this date in 1844. She was married to the Rev. George Frederick Cross, and she began writing to make money to help support their five children. (I suppose the pastorate in Australia didn’t pay too well.)

She wrote novels as well as poetry, and the following poems are two of her sonnets:

Despair
Alone! Alone! No beacon, far or near!
No chart, no compass, and no anchor stay!
Like melting fog the mirage melts away
In all-surrounding darkness, void and clear.
Drifting, I spread vain hands, and vainly peer
And vainly call for pilot, — weep and pray;
Beyond these limits not the faintest ray
Shows distant coast whereto the lost may steer.
O what is life, if we must hold it thus
As wind-blown sparks hold momentary fire?
What are these gifts without the larger boon?
O what is art, or wealth, or fame to us
Who scarce have time to know what we desire?
O what is love, if we must part so soon?

Faith
And is the great cause lost beyond recall?
Have all the hopes of ages come to naught?
Is life no more with noble meaning fraught?
Is life but death, and love its funeral pall?
Maybe. And still on bended knees I fall,
Filled with a faith no preacher ever taught.
O God — MY God — by no false prophet wrought —
I believe still, in despite of it all!
Let go the myths and creeds of groping men.
This clay knows naught — the Potter understands.
I own that Power divine beyond my ken,
And still can leave me in His shaping hands.
But, O my God, that madest me to feel,
Forgive the anguish of the turning wheel!