THE SECRET OF POWER.
Dark, dark that grove at the Attic gate
By the sad Eumenides haunted
Where the Theban King in his blindness sat
While the nightingales round him chanted!
In a grove as dark of cypress, and bay
Upgrown to a forest's stature
In vision I saw at the close of day
A Woman of godlike feature.
She stood like a Queen, and her vesture green
Shone out as a laurel sun-lighted;
And she sang a wild song like a Mourner's keen
With an Angel's triumph united.
She sang like one whose grief is done;
Who has solved Life's dread enigma;
A beam from the sun on her brow was thrown
And I saw there the conquering Stigma.
