University of Virginia Library

No! no! I cannot listen,—thou fair son
Of the fair frozen North. There is no glow
Of ardent passion in thy pale blue eyes.
I look into their liquid depths as one
Would search the still lakes of thy native land,
And they are just as cold and passionless.
If I should listen to thee, would thy heart
Which never beat defiance unto pride
Or rigid prudence, be a fair exchange
For mine, with its wild pulses of delight,
And omnipotent passions? Would the love
Of our impassion'd hearts be understood
By thee, to whom such fervour must appear
A wild and empty fable? No! ah, no.
Our hearts could never blend.
Yet, could'st thou love
With all the ardour of my sunny clime,
Should I forsake my home, my blessed home,
Which wealth has made a very paradise
Of incense, fountains, flowers, and melodies,
Health, and voluptuous ease, for those drear halls
In which the northern ladies shiver round
The heated stove, though wrapp'd in wool and furs,
While winter, shaking snow-drifts from his wings,
Shrieks round the trembling mansion? Oh, my heart
Grows chilly, as I think of that cold clime—
Thou say'st I am a captive, bought with gold
And cag'd like some young song bird. That my lord
Reigns, a stern tyrant o'er the beauteous girls
That languish in his harem.
To mine ear
Such words are strange—aye, very foolishness.
If my lord priz'd my beauty more than gold,
Is that not proof he lov'd me?—I am told
That your cold countrymen will take a wife
Of loathsome person, and imbecile mind,
If she but bring them money, which they prize
Above all female loveliness and worth,
Or fond and pure affection. I have heard
That your most beauteous maids may bloom, and fade
Neglected in your valleys; left to weep,
And die, beneath the burden of hard toil,
Despis'd, and trampled on, if they possess
No glittering stores, to buy a husband with!—
In noble generosity, my lord
Gives golden thousands for one modest bud
That grows in beauty by some mountain spring,
Or streamlet of the valley. Cast away
Thy prejudice, and look with candid eye
Upon this fair and gentle sisterhood,
Which Achmet calls his treasures. Each is fair,
And each has her own style of loveliness,
And our lord loves us all. His heart has room
For every trait of beauty, form and hue,
Just as your eye may take in a boquet
Of many brilliant flowers, and love them all.
Are we not happy? Have our hearts one wish
That is not gratified? Do we not seem
Like gentle spirits, in the paradise
Which pious moslems visit in their dreams?
We all adore our lord, and 'tis our joy
To do his pleasure, and our sweet reward
Is his dear smile of love. We know no care;
But in his absence sport away the hours
In every girlish pastime. We are slaves
Alone to love and pleasure. Our glad hearts
And soft small hands, are free from every stain
Of sordid care or toil. We only live
To dress, and laugh, and dance, and gather flowers
And wear them till they fade, and then the wreath
Is thrown aside, without a passing sigh
And replac'd by a richer.
Were it wise,
Think'st thou, to barter slavery such as this
For freedom that bows down beneath the chains
Of toil, and care, and sorrow, and gaunt want?
Oh! what has woman, frail and beautiful,
To do with freedom?—God, who made man free,
Gave woman as his solace. When he bade
Man earn his bread in sweat, and bitter toil,
He made him lord of woman, and decreed
That she should yield obedience to his sway
And meekly do his bidding. Wherefore then
Should woman talk of freedom, and affect
The tone of liberty? Is it not plain
That she is man's dependent, he her lord?
Or can your sophistries and glozings cheat
Her into a belief that she is free,
While your stern sceptre lies upon her head
Bending it downward, even when you smile.
Thou call'st my lord a despot, and unjust,
That while he gathers to himself a host
Of fair young girls, and revels in their love,
If one, on whom he seldom deigns to smile
Shall dare to love another—strait the sack
Is ready for the victim of the sea.
Yet this, I deem, is mercy. Could'st thou know
The worthlessness of life to woman's heart,
When it has lost its purity, and lies
Tossed on the billows that can never know
The blessed calm of peace,—when she endures
The serpent writhings of the cherish'd sin
Which she is sure will sting her unto death,
And yet has not the power to tear away,
From the polluted shrine, which never more
Can be the seat of conscious innocence,
Or truth, or holy calm,—when heaven is lost
And sin's dark record written on her brow,
'Tis time that she should die.
I would not live
(Slave as I am to Achmet) if my heart
Could feel the rush of passion at thy name,
Or tremble at thy presence. The fierce war
'Twixt love and duty, the degrading sense
Of perfidy, that would pierce through my soul
When my lord smiled on me, crushing me down
Beneath his feet, a poor polluted thing,
While sharp fang'd fears, like never-dying worms
Should prey upon my spirit.—Surely these
Would make the white shroud, and the deep dark sea
A refuge, to be long'd for.—But thou say'st
“A fit of groundless jealousy, or rage
May give the waves a victim.”—Be it so.
When love is chang'd to hate, or dark distrust,
'Tis better that the innocent should die,
Than live and feel its scourgings.
What is life
That we should fear to leave it, when it seems
Like some fair garden, where a blight has been,
And made each beauteous blossom, and fair bud,
A blacken'd piteous thing? While from beneath
The blighted foliage, gleam the hideous eyes
Of basilisk, and adder,—when the air
Is pestilence, and every sound a moan.

Thou art the insidious fiend, whose touch would change
My paradise of innocence and peace
To such a fearful ruin! Get thee hence!
I cannot, will not love thee—Woman's bliss
Is Purity.—Her dearest jewel, Truth.