Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Do no human pulses quiver in those wrists that bear the gyves,
With a noble, sweet endurance, such as moulds heroic lives?
Is no woman's heart now beating in that bosom's patient swell?
Do no thoughts of love or glory in that gaze of meekness dwell?

Some pent glow, methinks, diffuses o'er those limbs a grace of soul,
Warm with Nature, and yet chastened by a holy self-control;
Teaching how the loyal spirit ne'er can feel an outward chain,
While its truth remains unconquered, and the will asserts her reign.

By the hand that grasps the column, by the foot so calmly press'd,
By the mien sustained though vanquished, and the soft, relying breast—
Light as air may be the fetter that Earth's tyranny doth weave,
And her slaves, by wisest courage, may their destiny retrieve!

By the pride of gentle nurture, unsubdued by freedom's loss,
By the robe so deftly woven, by the locket and the cross—
Half unconscious of thy bondage, on the wings of Faith elate,
Thou art gifted with a being high above thy seeming fate!

What to thee a herd of gazers? what to thee a noisy mart?
Rapt in tranquil, fond seclusion, thou art musing far apart:
As the twilight falls around thee, and thy matchless form I scan,
Rising in serene abstraction, though it wears misfortune's ban;

With thy dimpled arm depending, and thy pure, averted brow,—
Earnest words I hear thee breathing to thy distant lover now;—
Words of triumph, not of wailing, for the cheer of Hope is thine,
And, immortal in thy beauty, sorrow grows with thee divine:

“The ark remained while on lone pinion hovered far the restless dove,
And, though captive, ever o'er me spreads the ægis of thy love;
If I could not feel its shielding to the frozen verge of Time,
If my days were not enlivened with a sense of trust sublime,—

“Vain the tryst that filled my being, vain the hue that came and went,
And the vainest of delusions our unspeakable content!
Let the dream that we have cherished make more dear each hidden spell,
Quicken every true endeavor, and each baneful image quell;

“Give a tone of soulful music to the whisper of the trees,
Fill the very air with comfort, so that common things shall please;
Cover with divine inscriptions e'en the lowly-waving fern,
Make the farthest star in heaven with prophetic radiance burn;

“Draw a sympathetic echo from the plaintive low of kine,
From the cheerful hum of insects, and the dash of roaring brine;
Meet, full oft, responsive greetings in the twinkle of the grass,
And the flying cloud's huge shadows, as along the hills they pass;

“When thy warm lips tremble softly with emotion's voiceless glow,
And a vague and tender longing makes thy eyelids overflow—
When thy dark and clustered tresses from the brow are cast away,
And thy zoneless robe is stirring with the heart's unconscious play;

“When a rich and dreamy languor holds thee in a grateful trance,
As through green and rustling foliage, sky and water meet thy glance;
Or thy voice spontaneous wanders through some olden poet's song,
While the hush of deepening twilight all thy fondest moods prolong;

“When each human accent irks thee like a gossip's weary tale,
And the idle tricks of Custom make the zest of Nature stale;
When a lapse of care invites thee momently to summon back,
One by one, the signs of promise that redeem thy memory's track;

“When a stream or flower charms thee by its beauty's meek appeal,
Or a magic cadence, quickly, Fancy's sweetest founts unseal;
When the breeze thy cheek is fanning with the jocund air of health,
Or before thy sight is waving the full harvest's golden wealth;

“When to patient self-reliance driven by ungenial things,
All thy lofty spirit broodeth like a bird with drooping wings;
When the depth of this existence awes the flutter of its glee,
In thy struggle and thy quiet, know that I am near to thee!”