University of Virginia Library

As I was fain to wile a summer's day
With Shakspeare's Juliet folded in my lap,
And for her accents, strove to call up thine,
An unexpected music to my thoughts
Answered—the matchless laugh of Maidenhood;
While looking from the pondered page, I saw
Of the strange growths of Time and Nature, one.
It had thy brow in little, and thine eyes
But new created, offering gentleness;
Ev'n thy brown locks, with youth's half risen sun
Still gilding them aslant. “Who should this be
But Fanny Kemble's Daughter?” said my heart,
Ere others came to tell her parentage.

Tears waited on the vision. Woful child!
Thy Mother scarcely knows thy countenance,
Remodelled from its baby lineaments;
And I, a stranger, hold with grasp profane
A hand, that she should almost die to touch.
Wherefore is she thy Mother? unto her
The Poet's word: “Bring forth male children only,”
Should seem the fittest sentence. As I mused,
I heard, but heeded not, her careless talk,
Till mine own children climbed upon my knee,
Whom with a Mother's foolery I fondled,
Calling them Puss and Pug, and Slug, and Bear,
Berating them with mimic violence,
And silly buffets, to be coaxed with kissing.
As with a swift remembrance, said the Girl,
“Why, that is like my Mother!” and grew sad.

Oh! many-passioned Woman—fervid soul!
Thou, rich in all save Meekness—strong in all
Save that strong Patience which outwearies Fate,
And makes Gods quail before its constancy.
Which was forgotten in thy gifts of birth?
Of all the powers the greatest only—Love.

What voice makes music in the childless breast
Which thine own Diapason cannot fill?
Has Conscience ne'er a moral for the void?
Do thy forsaken ones cry out to thee
For the brave nurture left aside one day
To follow stormy feeling round the world?
Or gatherest thou, from thine own infancy,
Nature shall take thy glorious foundlings up,
Proving a wiser and a tenderer nurse
Than thou, self-tortured, and self-comforting?
Oh! wander where thou wilt, thou must return
From the flushed conquests of a thousand fields,
Vanquished at last of sorrow, as creeps back
From her wild course the wounded Lioness,
That Death may find her, crouching near her young.

Peace wait upon thee where thou seekest it—
At the world's altar, or the Convent grate.
But while thou walkest, Time doth follow on
With lessons that are slow and great to learn.
Lessons of human weakness, and life's woe;
The impotence of Anger, the divine
Of Pardon, and th' unconquerable power
Fixed in the waiting, philosophic eye.
As Fate's kaleidoscopic angles turn
Thou shalt behold great burthens poised and held
In smallest grasp, thro' Wisdom's leverage.
Thou shalt allow what patient hearts attend
The helpless cradle, without hope or love
Between its narrow bounds, and God's immense.
What painful fingers spin the duteous web
With little comfort, for the weal of such
As give no passing smile in recompense,
But take the garment to their frigid souls,
Saying, “it scarcely warms me.” Thou shalt learn
What Women, glorified thro' tears, have gone
Uncanonized of men, to that best heaven
Where God consoles His martyrs.
One who walked
From the throne's splendor to the bloody block,
Said: “this completes my glory,” with a smile
Which still illuminates men's thoughts of her.
When such as we supremely love and trust
Meet the last struggle on their outward way,
'Tis the last look of deathless-loving eyes,
The parting gesture of unconquered Faith,
That o'er the bitter waters beckon us,
Wringing fond hearts with vague imaginings,
Making unblest the limits that forbid
Aught save our longing souls to follow them.

Grief hath its wanderings—pass and pardon mine.
Thine was the lot of Woman, only thou
Wert more than Woman in thy haughty will,
And less than Woman, in humility.
Battling for higher tasks, and loftier praise,
Thy matchless office was unknown of thee.
A helpful partner? whence are mightiest laws
But of opposing forces, greatly wed?
A nurse of Babies? what is Nature else?
See, the stars nestle in the down of Night,
And, from the calm of one wide Mother-breast
Doth holy sleep reconsecrate the world.

Did torture go beyond the powers of life,
Could one not, dying, look such mild reproach
As looks a slave in his tormentor's eyes,
Who sees, thro' tears and blood, God's pardon near?

The tree that sheds its blossoms ere their time,
Bears not the Autumn glory of its fruit.
The drop that in its cavern cannot wait
The infiltration of a thousand years
Shall never shine, a diamond. Earth herself,
Hoarding rebellion, were chaotic still,
Foiled of her beauty, joyless, purposeless.
Oh friend! Life is creation to the end,
And we beget ourselves in agony
A thousand times, to one ancestral soul.

I cannot be thy Teacher, nor would ask
Unwilling lips to take their text from mine.
But wonder seizes on my thoughts, and fear,
When, in the Drama of our destinies,
A soul like thine is summoned to the front,
And maddens with the passion of its part.

The gaslights flutter, and the benches whirl,
The music sobs its insufficiency;
Some shout applause, some sit convulsed and still,
While heavenly Art, with awful eyes intent,
Waits to pronounce the sentence of the world.