In converse with the dead who leave the stamp Of ever-burning thoughts on many a page, When they are gone into the senseless damp Each heart was there a shield, and every tongue Was as a sword, of truth-young Rallied their secret hopes, though tyrants sung Of graves his spirit thus became Hymns of triumphant joy our scattered Had fed, my native land, the Than they have ever gained or ever lost XIII "In secret chambers parents read, and weep, My writings to their babes, no longer blind; And young men gather when their tyrants sleep, And vows of faith each to the other bind; And marriageable maidens, who have pined With love till life seemed melting through their look, A warmer zeal, a nobler hope, now find; And every bosom thus is rapt and shook, Like autumn's myriad leaves in one swoln mountain-brook. is the strength They congregate: in her they put their trust; The tyrants send their armed slaves to quell Her power; they, even like a thunder-gust Caught by some forest, bend beneath the spell Of words-for lately did a maiden Of that young maiden's speech, and to fair, Who from her childhood has been taught to bear The tyrant's heaviest yoke, arise, and make Her sex the law of truth and free dom hear, And with these quiet words- ' For thine own sake, I prithee spare me'-did with ruth so take XIX "All hearts that even the torturer, who had bound Her meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled, Loosened her, weeping then; nor could be found One human hand to harm her-unassailed Therefore she walks through the great City, veiled In virtue's adamantine eloquence, 'Gainst scorn and death and pain thus trebly mailed, And blending, in the smiles of that defence, The serpent and the dove, wisdom and innocence. XX "The wild-eyed Women throng around her path: From their luxurious dungeons, from the dust Of meaner thralls, from the oppressor's wrath, Or the caresses of his sated lust, their chiefs rebel. XXI "Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach To woman, outraged and polluted long; Gathering the sweetest fruit in human reach For those fair hands now free, while armed wrong Trembles before her look, though it be strong; Thousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright, And matrons with their babes, a stately throng! Lovers renew the vows which they did plight In early faith, and hearts long parted now unite. |
