Debris Part 8

Who would have dreamed a form that seemed Proud Honor's templed shrine, Could hold within an urn of sin A soul so false as thine?

Nor strange 'twould be, if ne'er again, Till age had wasted youth, That heart betrayed by such as thou, Could trust in human truth.

But go! and though thy wiles no more Will move my heart to strife, Canst glad thy vain soul with the thought That thou hast wrecked a life.

LIGHT BEYOND.

Is your heart bowed down with sorrow; Does your lot the hardest seem; Think you of a brighter morrow, Of a fairer future dream.

Have your prospects all been blighted; Has each promise proved a snare; Deepest wrongs are sometime righted, Never yield you to despair.

Has the slanderer's tongue unsparing Ruthless tarnished with its stain; Was your good name worth the wearing-- Go and win it back again.

Would you rest where suns.h.i.+ne lingers; You must toil the darkness through; Only work with willing fingers, Only live you brave and true.

Never care or trouble borrow, "Trouble's real if it seems"-- Ever see a bright to-morrow, Though you see it but in dreams.

A NEGLECTED "WOMAN'S RIGHT."

I have listened to this cry of "Woman's Rights," this clamoring for the ballot, for redress for woman's wrongs, and I could but think, amid it all, that there is one "woman's right"--the right that could make the widest redress for woman's wrongs--which she holds in her own hands and does not exercise. It is the right to defend, to uplift and enn.o.ble womankind; to be as lenient to a plea for mercy from a fallen woman as though that plea had come from the lips of a fallen man; to throw around her also the broad mantle of charity, and if she would try to reform, give her a chance. Far be it from any honest woman to countenance the abandoned wretch who plies an unholy calling in defiance of all morality, for her very breath is contamination; but why should you greet with smiles and warmest handclasps of friends.h.i.+p the man who pays his money for her blackened soul? When two human beings ruled by the same mysterious nature, have yielded to temptations and fallen, what is this monster of social distinction that excuses the sin of one as a folly or indiscretion, while it makes that of the other a crime, which a lifetime cannot retrieve? It is a strange justice that condones the fault of one while it condemns the other even to death; that gives to one, when dead, funeral rite and Christian burial and to the other the Morgue and a dishonored grave, simply because one is a strong man and the other a weak woman. And it is a stranger, sadder truth that 'tis woman's influence which metes out this justice to woman. Mother, if you must look with scorn and contempt upon the woman who through her love for some man has gone down to destruction, do not smilingly acknowledge her paramour a worthy suitor for your own unsullied daughter. Maiden, if you must sneeringly raise your white hand and push back into the depths of pollution the woman who seeks to reinstate herself in the path of rect.i.tude, do not permit the man who keeps half a dozen mistresses to clasp his arm around your waist and whirl you away to the soft measure of the "Beautiful Blue Danube." If the ban of society forbids that you say to a penitent sin-sick sister, "Go and sin no more," if you must consign her to the life of infamy which inevitably follows the deaf ear which you turn upon her appeal, then do it; but in G.o.d's name do not turn around and throw open the doors of your homes and welcome to the sanct.i.ty of your family altars the man who enticed her to ruin.

Ah, woman, by your tireless efforts you may win the right to vote, your voice may be heard in the a.s.sembly Halls of the Nation; but if you administer as one-sided a justice in political life as you do in social life, the reform for which you pray will never come!

WOULD YOU CARE?

All day on my pillow I wearily lay, With a stabbing pain at my heart, With throbbing temples, and a feverish thirst Burning, my lips apart.

If I longed for a touch of your soft, strong hand, For you one little minute there; For a smile, or a kiss, or a word to bless, Would you blame me, love?--would you care?

When the long, long, lonesome day was done, And you never for a moment came, If I tried to shut you out of my heart, Impatient at your name; If disappointment's bitter sting Was harder than pain to bear, If I turned away with a doubting frown, Would you blame me, love?--would you care?

Should I die to-night, and you saw me not Again till my soul had fled With its vain request, and my features wore The white hue of the dead-- Would you place just once, in a last caress, Your hand on my death-damp hair?

Would you give me a thought, or a fond regret?

Would you kiss me, love?--would you care?

A THOUGHT OF HEAVEN.

Friend of my heart, you say to me That your belief is this-- The heaven is but a vision rare Of pure, ethereal bliss.

And life there but a dream enhanced, Where never sound alarms; Where flowers ne'er fade and skies ne'er cloud, And voiceless music charms--

And save as see we in our dreams The dear ones gone before, The friends that here we knew and loved, We'll know and love no more.

An endless and unbroken rest, Nor change, nor night, nor day, Where aimless, as in sleep, we'll dream Eternity away.

Sweet friend of mine, that Heaven of thine Methinks if overblest; We could not work on earth enough To need so long a rest.

Our human nature could not be Content with rest like this, And even bliss could cloy, if we Had nothing else but bliss.

Great Nature's hand, in every plan, Had laid in wise design, But what design, or use, is in This theory of thine?

If, when our earth-career is done, All conscious life must cease, And we drift on, and on, and on, In endless, dreamy peace--

If Heaven is but a mystic spell, Whose glowing visions thrall, Why should we have a life beyond?

Why have a Heaven at all?

CONSOLANCE.

"Be brave?" why, yes, I will; I'll never more despair; Who could, with such sweet comforting as yours?

How, like the voice that stilled the tempest air, Your mild philosophy its reasoning pours.

Go you and build a temple to the skies, and make Your soul an alter-offering on the pile; Then, from its lightning-riven ruin, take Your crushed and bleeding self, and calmly smile.

When loud, and fierce, and wild, a storm sweeps o'er your rest, Say that it soothes you--brings you peace again; Laugh while the hot steel quivers in your breast, And "make believe" you love the scorching pain.

See every earthly thing your life is woven round, Fall, drop by drop, until your heart is sieved!

Go mad and writhe, and moan upon the ground, And curse, and die, and say that you have prayed and lived!

Then come to me, as now, and I will take your hand, And look upon your face and smile and say: "All were not born to hold a magic wand; Cheer up, my friend, you must be brave always."

WHEN THE ROSES GO.

You tell me you love me; you bid me believe That never such lover could mean to deceive.

You tell me the tale which a million times Has been told, and talked, and sung in rhymes; You rave o'er my "eyes" and my "beautiful hair,"

And swear to be true, as they always swear; But the wrinkles will grow, and the roses go, And lovers are rovers oft, you know, When the roses go.

I have heard of a woman, sweet and fair, With dewy lips and s.h.i.+ning hair, And you pledged to her, on your bended knee, The self-same vow you make to me.

She was fairer than I, I know; She was pure and true, and she loved you so; But the wrinkles will grow and the roses go-- How she learned that trouble comes, _you know_, When the roses go.

You're a man in each outward sense, I trow, With the stamp of a G.o.d on your peerless brow.

You hold my hand in your thrilling clasp, And my heart grows weak in your subtle grasp, Till I blush in the light of your tender eyes, And dream of a far-of paradise-- Almost forgetting that ever from there Another was turned in her bleak despair.

But the wrinkles will grow, and the roses go-- I will answer you, love, my love, you know, When the roses go.