Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.
A Loyal Womans NoLucy Larcom (18261893)
N
Down to your valley: you may rest you there:
The gulf is wide, and none can build a bridge
That your gross weight would safely hither bear.
With something that is kinder far than scorn,
And think, “Ah well! I might have grovelled too;
I might have walked there, fettered and forsworn.”
I might have chosen comfortable ways;
Once from these heights I shrank, beheld afar,
In the soft lap of quiet, easy days.
Have lost, in the warm whirlpools of your voice,
The sense of Evil, the stern cry of Right;
But truth has steered me free, and I rejoice:
At the poor herd that call their misery bliss;
But as a mortal speaks when God is near,
I drop you down my answer; it is this:—
What is the lowest in my own esteem:
Only my flowery levels can you see,
Nor of my heaven-smit summits do you dream.
Your heart has scarcely room for me beside.
I could not be shut in with name and pelf;
I spurn the shelter of your narrow pride!
To grasp your country’s measure of a man!
If such as you, when Freedom’s ways are rough,
Cannot walk in them, learn that women can!
You stoop to bend her losses to your gain,
And do not feel the meanness of your deed;
I touch no palm defiled with such a stain!
For woman’s scaling, care not I to know;
But when he falters by her side, or creeps,
She must not clog her soul with him to go.
Sometimes move with me at my being’s height:
To follow him to his more glorious place,
His purer atmosphere, were keen delight.
Up to the mountains, where the air is clear.
Win me and help me climbing, if at all!
Beyond these peaks rich harmonies I hear,—
The dawn pours in, to wash out Slavery’s blot:
Fairer than aught the bright sun ever saw
Rises a nation without stain or spot.
Tread not the soothing mosses of the plain;
Their hands are joined in sacrifice sublime;
Their feet firm set in upward paths of pain.
You cannot hear the voices in the air!
Ignoble souls will shrivel in that day:
The brightness of its coming can you bear?
Heroes who poured their blood out for the Truth,
Women whose hearts bled, martyrs all unknown,
Here catch the sunrise of immortal youth
It charms me not,—your call to rest below:
I press their hands, my lips pronounce their vows:
Take my life’s silence for your answer: No.