Tell me, mother Nature! tender yet stern mother!

In what nomenclature (fitlier than another)

Can I laud and praise thee, entreat and implore thee;

Ask thee what thy ways be, question yet adore thee.

Over me thy heaven bends its royal arches;

Through its vault the seven planets keep their marches:

Rising, shining, setting, with no change or turning;

Never once forgetting—wasted not with burning.

On and on, unceasing, move the constellations,

Lessening nor increasing since the birth of nations:

Sun and moon unfailing keep their times and seasons,—

But man, unavailing, pleads to thee for reasons.

Why the great dumb mountains, why the ocean hoary—

Even the babbling fountains, older are than story,

And his life's duration's but a few short marches

Of the constellations through the heavenly arches!

Even the oaks of Mamre, and the palms of Kedar,

(Praising thee with psalmry) and the stately cedar,

Through the cycling ages, stinted not are growing,—

While the holiest sages have not time for knowing.

Mother whom we cherish, savage while so tender,

Do the lilies perish mourning their lost splendor?

Does the diamond shimmer brightlier that eternal

Time makes nothing dimmer of its light supernal?

Do the treasures hidden in earth's rocky bosom,

Cry to men unbidden that they come and loose them?

Is the dew of dawntide sad because the Summer

Kissed to death the fawn-eyed Spring, the earlier comer?

Would the golden vapors trooping over heaven,

Quench the starry tapers of the sunless even?

When the arrowy lightnings smite the rocks asunder,

Do they shrink with frightenings from the bellowing thunder?

Inconceivable Nature! these, thy inert creatures,

With their sphinx-like stature, are of man the teachers;

Silent, secret, passive, endless as the ages,

'Gainst their forces massive fruitlessly he rages.

Winds and waves misuse him, buffet and destroy him;

Thorns and pebbles bruise him, heat and cold annoy him;

Sting of insect maddens, snarl of beast affrights him;

Shade of forest saddens, breath of flowers delights him.

O thou great, mysterious mother of all mystery!

At thy lips imperious man entreats his history.—

Whence he came—and whither is his spirit fleeing:

Ere it wandered hither had it other being:

Will its subtile essence, passing through death's portal,

Put on nobler presence in a life immortal?

Or is man but matter, that a touch ungentle,

Back again may shatter to forms elemental?

Can mere atoms question how they feel sensation?

Or dust make suggestion of its own creation?

Yet if man were better than his base conditions,

Could things baser fetter his sublime ambitions?

What unknown conjunction of the pure etherial,

With the form and function of the gross material,

Gives the product mortal? whose immortal yearning

Brings him to the portal of celestial learning.

To the portal gleaming, where the waiting sphinxes,

Humoring his dreaming, give him what he thinks is

Key to the arcana—plausible equation

Of the problems many in his incarnation.

Pitiful delusion!—in no nomenclature—

Maugre its profusion—O ambiguous nature!

Can man find expression of his own relation

To the great procession of facts in creation?

Fruitless speculating! none may lift the curtain

From the antedating ages and uncertain

When what is was not, and tides of pristine being

Beat on shores forgot, and all, as now, unseeing.

Whence impelled or whither, or by what volition;

Borne now here, now thither, in blind inanition.

Out of this abysmal, nebulous dim distance,

Haunted by a dismal, phantomic existence,

Issued man?—a creature without inspiration,

Gross of form and feature, dull of inclination?

Or was his primordial self a something higher?

Fresh from test and ordeal of elemental fire.

Were these ages golden while the world was younger,

When the giants olden knew not toil nor hunger?

When no pain nor malice marred joy's full completeness,

And life's honeyed chalice rapt the soul with sweetness?

When the restless river of time loved to linger;

Ere flesh felt the quiver of death's dissolving finger;

When man's intuition led without deflection,

To a sure fruition, and a full perfection.

Individual man is ever new created:

What his being's plan is, loosely predicated

On the circumstances of his sole condition,

Colored by the fancies borrowed from tradition.

His creation gives him clue to nothing older:

Naked, life receives him—wondering beholder

Of the world about him—and ere aught is certain,

Time and mystery flout him; and death drops the curtain.

Man, the dreamer, groping after what he should be,

Cheers himself with hoping to be what he would be:

When he hopes no longer, with self-adulation,

Fancies he was stronger at his first creation:

Else—in him inhering powers of intellection—

Death, by interfering with his mind's perfection,

Itself gives security to restore life's treasure,

Freed from all impurity and in endless measure.

Thou, O Nature, knowest, yet no word is spoken.

Time, that ever flowest, presses on unbroken:

All in vain the sages toil with proof and question—

The immemorial ages give no least suggestion.

My steps are turned away;

Yet my eyes linger still,

On their beloved hill,

In one long, last survey:

Gazing through tears that multiply the view,

Their passionate adieu!

O, joy-empurpled height,

Down whose enchanted sides

The rosy mist now glides,

How can I loose thy sight?

How can my eyes turn where my feet must go,

Trailing their way in woe?

Gone is my strength of heart;

The roses that I brought

From thy dear bowers, and thought

To keep, since we must part—

Thy thornless roses, sweeter until now,

Than round Hymettus' brow.

The golden-vested bees

Find sweetest sweetness in—

Such odors dwelt within

The moist red hearts of these—

Alas, no longer give out blissful breath,

But odors rank with death.

Their dewiness is dank;

It chills my pallid arms,

Once blushing 'neath their charms;

And their green stems hang lank,

Stricken with leprosy, and fair no more,

But withered to the core.

Vain thought! to bear along,

Into this torrid track,

Whence no one turneth back

With his first wanderer's song

Yet on his lips, thy odors and thy dews,

To deck these dwarfed yews.

No more within thy vales,

Beside thy plashing wells,

Where sweet Euterpe dwells

With songs of nightingales,

And sounds of flutes that make pale Silence glow,

Shall I their rapture know.

Farewell, ye stately palms!

Clashing your cymbal tones,

In thro' the mystic moans

Of pines at solemn psalms:

Ye myrtles, singing Love's inspired song,

We part, and part for long!

Farewell, majestic peaks!

Whereon my listening soul

Hath trembled to the roll

Of thunders that Jove wreaks—

And calm Minerva's oracles hath heard

All more than now unstirred!

Adieu, ye beds of bloom!

No more shall zephyr bring

To me, upon his wing,

Your loveliest perfume;

No more upon your pure, immortal dyes,

Shall rest my happy eyes.

I pass by; at thy foot,

O, mount of my delight!

Ere yet from out thy sight,

I drop my voiceless lute:

It is in vain to strive to carry hence

Its olden eloquence.

Your sacred groves no more

My singing shall prolong,

With echoes of my song,

Doubling it o'er and o'er.

Haunt of the muses, lost to wistful eyes,

What dreams of thee shall rise!

Rise but to be dispelled—

For here where I am cast,

Such visions may not last,

By sterner fancies quelled:

Relentless Nemesis my doom hath sent—

This cruel banishment!

A fleet set sail upon a summer sea:

'Tis now so long ago,

I look no more to see my ships come home;

But in that fleet sailed all 'twas dear to me.

Ships never bore such precious freight as these,

Please God, to any woe.

His world is wide, and they may ride the foam,

Secure from danger, in some unknown seas.

But they have left me bankrupt on life's 'change;

And daily I bestow

Regretful tears upon the blank account,

And with myself my losses rearrange.

Oh, mystic wind of fate, dost hold my dower

Where I may never know?

Of all my treasure ventured what amount

Will the sea send me in my parting hour!

"Come out into the garden, Maud;"

In whispered tones young Percy said:

He but repeated what he'd read

That afternoon, with soft applaud:

A snatch, which for my same name's sake,

He caught, out of the sweet, soft song,

A lover for his love did make,

In half despite of some fond wrong:—

And more he quoted, just to show

How still the rhymes ran in his head,

With visions of the roses red

That on the poet's pen did grow.

The poet's spell was on our blood;

The spell of June was in the air;

We felt, more than we understood,

The charm of being young and fair.

Where everything is fair and young—

As on June eves doth fitly seem:

The Earth herself lies in among

The misty, azure fields of space,

A bride, whose startled blushes glow

Less flame-like through the shrouds of lace

That sweeter all her beauties show.

We walked and talked beneath the trees—

Bird-haunted, flowering trees of June—

The roses purpled in the moon:

We breathed their fragrance on the breeze—

Young Percy's voice is tuned to clear

Deep tones, as if his heart were deep:

This night it fluttered on my ear

As young birds flutter in their sleep.

My own voice faltered when I said

How very sweet such hours must be

With one we love. At that word he

Shook like the aspen overhead:

"Must be!" he drew me from the shade,

To read my face to show his own:

"Say are, dear Maud!"—my tongue was stayed;

My pliant limbs seemed turned to stone.

He held my hands I could not move—

The nerveless palms together prest—

And clasped them tightly to his breast;

While in my heart the question strove.

The fire-flies flashed like wandering stars—

I thought some sprang from out his eyes:

Surely some spirit makes or mars

At will our earthly destinies!

"Speak, Maud!"—at length I turned away:

He must have thought it woman's fear;

For, whispering softly in my ear

Such gentle thanks as might allay

Love's tender shame; left on my brow,

And on each hand, a warm light kiss—

I feel them burn there even now—

But all my fetters fell at this.

I spoke like an injured queen:

It's our own defence when we're surprised—

The way our weakness is disguised;

I said things that I could not mean,

Or ought not—since it was a lie

That love had not been in my mind:

'Twas in the air I breathed; the sky

Shone love, and murmured it the wind.

It had absorbed my soul with bliss;

My blood ran love in every vein,

And to have been beloved again

Were heavenly!—so I thought till this

Unlooked for answer to the prayer

My heart was making with its might,

Thus challenged, caught in sudden snare,

Like two clouds meeting on a height,

And, pausing first in short strange lull,

Then bursting into awful storm,

Opposing feelings multiform,

Struggled in silence: and then full

Of our blind woman-wrath, broke forth

In stinging hail of sharp-edged ice,

As freezing as the polar north,

Yet maddening. O, the poor mean vice

We women have been taught to call

By virtue's name! the holy scorn

We feel for lovers left love-lorn

By our own coldness, or by the wall

Of other love 'twixt them and us!

The tempest past, I paused. He stood

Silent,—and yet "Ungenerous!"

Was hurled back, plainer than ere could

His lips have said it, by his eyes

Fire-flashing, and his pale, set face,

Beautiful, and unmarred by trace

Of aught save pain and pained surprise.

—I quailed at last before that gaze,

And even faintly owned my wrong:

I said I "spoke in such amaze

I could not choose words that belong

To such occasions." Here he smiled,

To cover one low, quick-drawn sigh:

"June eves disturb us differently,"

He said, at length; "and I, beguiled

By something in the air, did do

My Lady Maud unmeant offence;

And, what is stranger far, she too,

Under the baleful influence

of this fair heaven"—he raised his eyes,

And gestured proudly toward the stars—

"Has done me wrong. Wrong, lady, mars

God's purpose, written on these skies,

Painted and uttered in this scene:

Acknowledged in each secret heart;

We both are wrong, you say; 'twould mean

That we too should be wide apart—

And so, adieu!"—with this he went.

I sat down whitening in the moon,

With heat as of a desert noon,

Sending its fever vehement

Across my brow, and through my frame—

The fever of a wild regret—

A vain regret without a name,

In which both love and loathing met.

Was this the same enchanted air

I breathed one little hour ago?

Did all these purple roses blow

But yestermorn, so sweet, so fair?

Was it this eve that some one said

"Come out into the garden, Maud?"

And while the sleepy birds o'erhead

Chirped out to know who walked abroad,

Did we admire the plumey flowers

On the wide-branched catalpa trees,

And locusts, scenting all the breeze;

And call the balm-trees our bird-towers?

Did we recall the "black bat Night,"

That flew before young Maud walked forth—

And say this Night's wings were too bright

For bats'—being feathered, from its birth,

Like butterflies' with powdered gold:

Still talking on, from gay to grave,

And trembling lest some sudden wave

Of the soul's deep, grown over-bold,

Should sweep the barriers of reserve,

And whelm us in tumultuous floods

Of unknown power? What did unnerve

Our frames, as if we walked with gods?

Unless they, meaning to destroy,

Had made us mad with a false heaven,

Or drunk with wine and honey given

Only for immortals to enjoy.

Alas, I only knew that late

I'd seemed in an enchanted sphere;

That now I felt the web of fate

Close round me, with a mortal fear.

If only once the gods invite

To banquets that are crowned with roses;

After which the celestial closes

Are barred to us; if in despite

Of such high favor, arrogant

We blindly choose to bide our time,

Rejecting Heaven's—and ignorant

What we have spurned, attempt to climb

To heavenly places at our will—

Finding no path thereto but one,

Nemesis-guarded, where atone

To heaven, all such as hopeful still,

Press toward the mount,—yet find it strewn

With corses, perished by the way,

Of those who Fate did importune

Too rashly, or her will gainsay.

If I have been thrust out from heaven,

This night, for insolent disdain,

Of putting a young god in pain,

How shall I hope to be forgiven?

Yet let me not be judged as one

Who mocks at any high behest;

My fault being that I kept the throne

Of a Jove vacant in my breast,

And when Apollo claimed the place

I was too loyal to my Jove;

Unmindful how the masks of love

Transfigure all things to our face.

Ah, well! if I have lost to fate

The greatest boon that heaven disposes;

And closed upon myself the gate

To fields of bliss; 'tis on these roses,

On this intoxicating air,

The witching influence of the moon,

The poet's rhymes that went in tune

To the night's voices low and rare;

To all, that goes to make such hours

Like hasheesh-dreams. These did defy,

With contrary fate-compelling power,

The intended bliss;—'twas June, not I.

Dull, yellow, heavy, lustreless—

With less of radiance than the burnished tress,

Crumpled on Beauty's forehead: cloddish, cold,

Kneaded together with the common mold!

Worn by sharp contact with the fretted edges

Of ancient drifts, or prisoned in deep ledges;

Hidden within some mountain's rugged breast

From man's desire and quest—

Would thou could'st speak and tell the mystery

That shrines thy history!

Yet 'tis of little consequence,

To-day, to know how thou wert made, or whence

Earthquake and flood have brought thee: thou art here,

At once the master that men love and fear—

Whom they have sought by many strange devices,

In ancient river-beds; in interstices

Of hardest quartz; upon the wave-wet strand,

Where curls the tawny sand

By mountain torrents hurried to the main,

And thence hurled back again:—

Yes, suffered, dared, and patiently

Offered up everything, O gold, to thee!—

Home, wife and children, native soil, and all

That once they deemed life's sweetest, at thy call;

Fled over burning plains; in deserts fainted;

Wearied for months at sea—yet ever painted

Thee as the shining Mecca, that to gain

Invalidated pain,

Cured the sick soul—made nugatory evil

Of man or devil.

Alas, and well-a-day! we know

What idle dreams were these that fooled men so.

On yonder hillside sleep in nameless graves,

To which they went untended, the poor slaves

Of fruitless toil; the victims of a fever

Called home-sickness—no remedy found ever;

Or slain by vices that grow rankly where

Men madly do and dare,

In alternations of high hope and deep abysses

Of recklessnesses.

Painfully, and by violence:

Even as heaven is taken, thou wert dragged whence

Nature had hidden thee—whose face is worn

With anxious furrows, and her bosom torn

In the hard strife—and ever yet there lingers

Upon these hills work for the "effacing fingers"

Of time, the healer, who makes all things seem

A half forgotten dream;

Who smooths deep furrows and lone graves together,

By touch of wind and weather.

Thou heavy, lustreless, dull clod!

Digged from the earth like a base common sod;

I wonder at thee, and thy power to hold

The world in bond to thee, thou yellow gold!

Yet do I sadly own thy fascination,

And would I gladly show my estimation

By giving house-room to thee, if thou'lt come

And cumber up my home;—

I'd even promise not to call attention

To these things that I mention!

"The King can do no wrong," and thou

Art King indeed to most of us, I trow.

Thou'rt an enchanter, at whose sovereign will

All that there is of progress, learning, skill,

Of beauty, culture, grace—and I might even

Include religion, though that flouts at heaven—

Comes at thy bidding, flies before thy loss;—

And yet men call thee dross!

If thou art dross then I mistaken be

Of thy identity.

Ah, solid, weighty, beautiful!

How could I first have said that thou wert dull?

How could have wondered that men willingly

Gave up their homes, and toiled and died for thee?

Theirs was the martyrdom in which was planted

A glorious State, by precious memories haunted:

Ours is the comfort, ease, the power, the fame

Of an exalted name:

Theirs was the struggle of a proud ambition—

Ours is the full fruition.

Thou, yellow nugget, wert the star

That drew these willing votaries from afar,

'Twere wrong to call thee lustreless or base

That lightest onward all the human race,

Emblem art thou, in every song or story,

Of highest excellence and brightest glory:

Thou crown'st the angels, and enthronest Him

Who made the cherubim:

My reverend thought indeed is not withholden,

O nugget golden!

You say there's a Being all-loving,

Whose nature is justice and pity;

Could you say where you think he is roving?

We have sought him from city to city,

But he never is where we can find him,

When outrage and sorrow beset us;

It is strange we are always behind him,

Or that He should forever forget us.

But being a god, he is thinking

Of the masculine side of the Human;

And though just, it would surely be sinking

The God to be thoughtful for woman.

For him and by him was man made:

Sole heir of the earth and its treasures;

An after-thought, woman—the handmaid,

Not of God, but of man and his pleasures.

Should you say that man's God would reprove us,

If we found him and showed him our bruises?

It is dreary with no one to love us,

Or to hold back the hand that abuses:

Man's hand, that first led and caressed us,

Man's lips, that first kissed and betrayed;—

If his God could know how he's oppressed us,

Do you think that we need be afraid?

For we loved him—and he who stood nearest

To God, who could doubt or disdain?

When he swore by that God, and the dearest

Of boons that he hoped to obtain

Of that God, that he truly would keep us

In his heart of hearts precious and only:

Say, how could we think he would steep us

In sorrow, and leave us thus lonely?

But you see how it is: he has left us,

This demi-god, heir of creation;

Of our only good gifts has bereft us,

And mocked at our mad desolation:

Says that we knew that such oaths would be broken—

Says we lured him to lie and betray;

Quotes the word of his God as a token

Of the law that makes woman his prey.

And now what shall we do? We have given

To this master our handmaiden's dower:

Our beauty and youth, aye, and even

Our souls have we left in his power.

Though we thought when we loved him, that loving

Made of woman an angel, not demon;

We have found, to our fond faith's disproving,

That love makes of woman a leman!

Yes, we gave, and he took: took not merely

What we gave, for his lying pretences:

But our whole woman world, that so dearly

We held by till then: our defences

Of home, of fair fame; the affection

Of parents and kindred; the human

Delight of child-love; the protection

That is everywhere owed to a woman.

You say there's a Being all-loving,

Whose nature is justice and pity:

Could you say where you think he is roving?

We have sought him from city to city.

We have called unto him, our eyes streaming

With the tears of our pain and despair:

We have shouted unto him blaspheming,

And whispered unto him in prayer.

But he sleeps, or is absent, or lending

His ear to man's prouder petition:

And the black silence over us bending

Scorches hot with the breath of perdition.

For this fair world of man's, in which woman

Pays for all that she gets with her beauty,

Is a desert that starves out the human,

When her charms charm not squarely with duty.

For man were we made, says the preacher,

To love him and serve him in meekness,

Of man's God is man solely the teacher

Interpreting unto our weakness:

He the teacher, the master, dispenser

Not only of law, but of living,

Breaks his own law with us, then turns censor,

Accusing, but never forgiving.

Do you think that we have not been nursing

Resentment for wrong and betrayal?

From our hearts, filled with gall, rises cursing,

To our own and our masters' dismayal.

'Tis for this that we seek the all-loving,

Whose nature is justice and pity;

And we'll find Him, wherever he's roving,

In country, in town, or in city.

He must show us his justice, who made us;

He must place sin where sin was conceived;

We must know if man's God will upbraid us

Because we both loved and believed.

We must know if man's riches and power,

His titles, crowns, sceptres and ermine,

Weigh with God against womanhood's dower,

Or whether man's guilt they determine.

It would seem that man's God should restrain him,

Or else should avenge our dishonor:

Shall the cries of the hopeless not pain him,

Or shall woman take all guilt upon her?

Let us challenge the maker that made us;

Let us cry to Christ, son of a woman;

We shall learn if, when man has betrayed us,

Heaven's justice accords with the human.

We must know if because we were lowly,

And kept in the place man assigned us,

He could seek us with passions unholy

And be free, while his penalties bind us.

We would ask if his gold buys exemption,

Or whether his manhood acquits him;

How it is that we scarce find redemption

For sins less than his self-law permits him.

Do we dare the Almighty to question?

Shall the clay to the potter appeal?

To whom else shall we go with suggestion?

Shall the vase not complain to the wheel?

God answered Job out of the groaning

Of thunder and whirlwind and hailing;

Will he turn a deaf ear to our moaning,

Or reply to our prayers with railing?

Did you speak of a Christ who is tender—

A deity born of a woman?

Of the sorrowful, God and defender,

And brother and friend of the human?

Long ago He ascended to heaven,

Long ago was His teaching forgotten;

The lump has no longer the leaven,

But is heavy, unwholesome and rotten.

The gods are all man's, whom he praises

For laws that make woman his creature;

For the rest, theological mazes

Furnish work for the salaried preacher.

In the youth of the world it was better,

We had deities then of our choosing;

We could pray, though we wore then a fetter,

To a Goddess of binding and loosing.

We could kneel in a grove or a temple,

No man's heavy hand on our shoulder:

Had in Pallas Athene example

To make womanhood stronger and bolder.

But the temples are broken and plundered,

Sacred altars profanely o'erthrown;

Where the oracle trembled and thundered,

Are a cavern, a fount, and a stone.

Yet we would of the Christ hear the story,

'Twas familiar in days that are ended;

His humility, purity, glory,

Are they not into heaven ascended?

We see naught but scorning and hating;

We hear naught but threats and contemning:

For your Christian is good and berating,

And your sinner is first in condemning.

Should you say that the Christ would reprove us,

If we found him and told him our trouble?

It is fearful with no one to love us,

And our pain and despair growing double.

It is mad'ning to feel we're excluded

From the homes of the mothers that bore us;

And that man, by no false arts deluded,

May enter unchallenged before us.

It is hard to be humble when trodden;

We cannot be meek when oppressed;

Nor pure while our souls are made sodden

With loathing that can't be confessed;

Or true, while our bread and our shelter

By a lying pretence is obtained—

Deceived, in deception we welter;

By a touch are we evermore stained.

O hard lot of woman! the creature

Of a creature whose God is asleep,

Or gone on a journey. You teach her

She was made to sin, suffer, and weep;

We wait for a new revelation,

We cry for a God of our own;

O God unrevealed, bring salvation,

From our necks lift the collar of stone!

I lay me down straight, with closed eyes,

And pale hands folded across my breast,

Thinking, unpained, of the sad surprise

Of those who shall find me thus fall'n to rest;

And the grief in their looks when they learn no endeavor,

Can disturb my repose—for my sleep is forever.

I know that a smile will lie hid in my eyes,

Even a soft throb of joy stir the pulse in my breast,

When they sit down to mourning, with tears and with sighs,

And shudder at death, which to me is but rest.

So sweet to be parted at once from our pain;

To put off our care as a robe that is worn;

To drop like a link broken out of a chain,

And be lost in the sands by Time's tide overborne:

And to know at my loss all the wildest regretting,

Will be as a foot-print, washed out in forgetting.

To be certain of this—that my faults perish first;

That when they behold me so calmly asleep,

They can but forgive me my errors at worst,

And speak of my praises alone as they weep.

"Whom the gods love die young," they will say;

Though they should think it, they will not say so:

"Whom the world pierces with thorns pass away,

Grieving, yet asking and longing to go!"

No, when they see how divine my repose is,

They'll forget that my-life-path is not over roses;

And they'll whisper together, with hands full of flowers,

How always I loved them to wear on my breast;

And strewing them over my bosom in showers,

With hands shaken by sobs, leave me softly to rest.

There is one who will come when the rest are away;

One bud of a rose will he bring for my hair;

He knows how I liked it, worn always that way,

And his fingers will tremble while placing it there.

Yes, he'll remember those soft June-day closes,

When the sky was as flushed as our own crimson roses;

He'll remember the flush on the sky and the flowers,

And the red on my cheek where his lips had been prest;

But the throes of his heart in the long, silent hours,

Will disturb not my dreams, so profoundly I'll rest.

So, all will forget, what to think of mere pain,

That the heart now asleep in this solemn repose,

Had contended with tempests of sorrow in vain,

And gone down in the strife at the feet of its foes:

They will choose to be mute when a deed I have done,

Or a word I have spoke I can no more atone;

They'll remember I loved them, was faithful and true;

They'll not say what a wild will abode in my breast;

But repeat to each other, as if they were new,

Old stories of what did the loved one at rest.

Ah! while I lie soothing my soul with this dream,

The terror of waking comes back to my heart;

Why is it not as I thus make it seem?

Must I come back to the world, ere we part?

Deep was the swoon of my spirit—why break it?

Why bring me back to the struggles that shake it?

Alas, there is room on my feet for fresh bruises—

The flowers are not dead on my brow or my breast—

When shall I learn "sweet adversity's uses,"

And my tantalized spirit be truly at rest!

O, ye Athenians, drunken with self-praise,

What dreams I had of you, beside the sea,

In far Miletus! while the golden days

Slid into silver nights, so sweet to me;

For then I dreamed my day-dreams sweetly o'er,

Fancying the touch of Pallas on my brow—

Libations of both heart and wine did pour,

And offered up my being with my vow.

'Twas thus to Athens my heart drew at last

My life, my soul, myself. Ah, well, I learn

To love and loathe the bonds that hold me fast,

Your captive and your conquerer in turn;

Am I not shamed to match my charms with those

Of fair boy-beauties? gentled for your love

To match the freshness of the morning rose,

And lisp in murmurs like the cooing dove.

O, men of Athens! by the purple sea

In far Miletus, when I dreamed of you,

Watching the winged ships that invited me

To follow their white track upon the blue;

'Twas the desire to mate my lofty soul

That drew me ever like a viewless chain

Toward Homer's land of heroes, 'til I stole

Away from home and dreams, to you and pain.

I brought you beauty—but your boys invade

My woman's realm of love with girlish airs.

I brought high gifts, and powers to persuade,

To charm, to teach, with your philosophers.

But knowledge is man's realm alone, you hold;

And I who am your equal am cast down

Level with those who sell themselves for gold—

A crownless queen—a woman of the town!

Ye vain Athenians, know this, that I

By your hard laws am only made more free;

Your unloved dames may sit at home and cry,

But, being unwed, I meet you openly,

A foreigner, you cannot wed with me;

But I can win your hearts and sway your will,

And make your free wives envious to see

What power Aspasia wields, Milesian still.

Who would not be beloved of Pericles?

I could have had all Athens at my feet;

And have them for my flatterers, when I please;

Yet, one great man's great love is far more sweet!

He is my proper mate as I am his—

You see my young dreams were not all in vain—

And I have tasted of ineffable bliss,

If I am stung at times with fiery pain.

It is not that I long to be a wife

By your Athenian laws, and sit at home

Behind a lattice, prisoner for life,

With my lord left at liberty to roam;

Nor is it that I crave the right to be

At the symposium or the Agora known;

My grievance is, that your proud dames to me

Came to be taught, in secret and alone.

They fear; what do they fear? is't me or you?

Am I not pure as any of them all?

But your laws are against me; and 'tis true,

If fame is lowering, I have had a fall!

O, selfish men of Athens, shall the world

Remember you, and pass my glory by?

Nay, 'til from their proud heights your names are hurled,

Mine shall blaze with them on your Grecian sky.

Am I then boastful? It is half in scorn

Of caring for your love, or for your praise,

As women do, and must. Had I been born

In this proud Athens, I had spent my days

In jealousy of boys, and stolen hours

With some Milesian, of a questioned place,

Learning of her the use of woman's powers

Usurped by men of this patrician race.

Alas! I would I were a child again,

Steeped in dream langours by the purple sea;

And Athens but the vision it was then,

Its great men good, its noble women free:

That I in some winged ship should strive to fly

To reach this goal, and founder and go down!

O impious thought, how could I wish to die,

With all that I have felt and learned unknown?

Nay, I am glad to be to future times

As much Athenian as is Pericles;

Proud to be named by men of other climes

The friend and pupil of great Socrates.

What is the gossip of the city dames

Behind their lattices to one like me?

More glorious than their high patrician names

I hold my privilege of being free!

And yet I would that they were free as I;

It angers me that women are so weak,

Looking askance when ere they pass me by

Lest on a chance their lords should see us speak;

And coming next day to an audience

In hope of learning to resemble me:

They wish, they tell me, to learn eloquence—

The lesson they should learn is liberty.

O Athens, city of the beautiful,

Home of all art, all elegance, all grace;

Whose orators and poets sway the soul

As the winds move the sea's unstable face;

O wonderous city, nurse and home of mind,

This is my oracle to you this day—

No generous growth from starved roots will you find,

But fruitless blossoms weakening to decay.

You take my meaning? Sappho is no more,

And no more Sapphos will be, in your time;

The tree is dead on one side that before

Ran with such burning sap of love and rhyme.

Your glorious city is the utmost flower

Of a one-sided culture, that will spend

Itself upon itself, 'till, hour by hour,

It runs its sources dry, and so must end.

That race is doomed, behind whose lattices

Its once free women are constrained to peer

Upon the world of men with vacant eyes;

It was not so in Homer's time, I hear.

But Eastern slaves have eaten of your store,

Till in your homes all eating bread are slaves;

They're built into your walls, beside your door,

And bend beneath your lofty architraves.

A woman of the race that looks upon

The sculptured emblems of captivity,

Shall bear a slave or tyrant for a son;

And none shall know the worth of liberty.

Am I seditious?—Nay, then, I will keep

My lesson for your dames when next they steal

On tip-toe to an audience. Pray sleep

Securely, and dream well: we wish your weal!

Why, what vain prattle: but my heart is sore

With thinking on the emptiness of things,

And these Athenians, treacherous to the core,

Who hung on Pericles with flatterings.

I would indeed I were a little child,

Resting my tired limbs on the sunny sands

In far Miletus, where the airs blow mild,

And countless looms throb under busy hands.

The busy hand must calm the busy thought,

And labor cool the passions of the hour;

To the tired weaver, when his web is wrought,

What signifies the party last in power?

But here in Athens, 'twixt philosophers

Who reason on the nature of the soul;

And all the vain array of orators,

Who strove to hold the people in control.

Between the poets, artists, critics, all,

Who form a faction or who found a school,

We weave Penelope's web with hearts of gall,

And my poor brain is oft the weary tool.

Yet do I choose this life. What is to me

Peace or good fame, away from all of these,

But living death? I do choose liberty,

And leave to Athens' dames their soulless ease.

The time shall come, when Athens is no more,

And you and all your gods have passed away;

That other men, upon another shore,

Shall from your errors learn a better way.

To them eternal justice will reveal

Eternal truth, and in its better light

All that your legal falsehoods now conceal,

Will stand forth clearly in the whole world's sight.