Women must weep :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lo, it was a goodly thing,
And it had a glorious plan,
With the mighty sweep of the eagle's wing,
And the brow of the lordliest man,
Who defies his mortal ban,
And would take from death the terror-sting,
That through all the ages ran;
To which nothing mean or small may cling,
While the coming days new treasures bring,
And a splendour without span,
A crown that was never worn by king—
Had it grown as it began.

Ah, she was a woman sweet,
And she moved a maiden fair;
For the earth was kindly to her feet,
And each stone became a stair,
And the storm a gentle air
That would waft her on, and the filthy street
Was no more a filthy lair;
And her footstep all things came to greet,
While the night and morning vied to meet
In the marvel of her hair;
But the shadows wove her winding-sheet,
And the web was of despair.

She was wrought on a higher scale,
As a promise of the time
When the hours would tell a vaster tale,
And ring out a rarer chime;
From the folly worse than crime,
And the graceless acting, old and stale,
Which misfits its clownish mime,
She had broken through the narrow pale,
And its freedom stolen from the gale,
And to jewels turn'd the slime;
Yea, she blossoms pick'd from desert dale,
Where we only saw the rime.

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But she yet arose from earth,
And she moulded was of clay,
For her heart rebell'd against the dearth,
That deforms our little day;
And the fair forbidden way
Was a sweeter home than the cottage hearth,
With its gable small and gray;
And her world seem'd just a convent's girth,
To the glorious dreams she brought to birth,
And the empire she would sway;
And, alas! when woman knows her worth,
Not that wisdom too will slay.