Do no human pulses quiver
In those wrists that bear the gyves
With a noble, sweet endurance
Such as fills 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 its reign.
Light as air may be the fetter
That Earth's tyranny doth weave,
And her slaves by wisest courage
Shall their destiny retrieve.
By the hand that grasps the column,
By the foot so calmly pressed,
By the mien, sustained though vanquished,
And the soft, relying breast—
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 comfort, 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 thou captive, ever o'er me
Spreads the aegis of thy love.
If I could not feel its shielding
To the frozen verge of Time,
If my days were not enlivened
By a sense of faith 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 which we have cherished
Make more dear each hidden spell,
Quicken every true endeavor,
And each baneful image quell;
Give a tune 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 langour
Holds thee in a grateful trance,
As through green and quivering 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 nature broodeth
Like a bird with folded 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!" H. T. T.