HR

WORTH OF WOMEN

ONOR to Woman! To her it is given

To garden the earth with the roses of Heaven!

All blessed, she linketh the Loves in their choir,

In the veil of her Graces her beauty concealing,
She tends on each altar that's hallowed to Feeling,
And keeps ever living the fire!

From the bounds of Truth careering,
Man's strong spirit wildly sweeps,
With each hasty impulse veering,

Down to Passion's troubled deeps.
And his heart, contented never,

Greeds to grapple with the far,
Chasing his own dream forever

On through many a distant Star!

But Woman, with looks that can charm and enchain,
Lureth back at her beck that wild truant again

By the spell of her presence beguiled;
In the home of the Mother her modest abode,
And modest the manners by Nature bestowed
On Nature's most exquisite child.

Bruised and worn, but fiercely breasting,
Foe to foe, the angry strife,—
Man the Wild One, never resting,
Roams along the troubled life:
What he planneth, still pursuing;
Vainly as the hydra bleeds,
Crest the severed crest renewing,

Wish to withered wish succeeds.

But Woman at peace with all being reposes,
And seeks from the Moment to gather the roses,
Whose sweets to her culture belong.

Ah! richer than he, though his soul reigneth o'er
The mighty dominion of Genius and Lore,
And the infinite Circle of Song.

Strong and proud and self-depending,
Man's cold bosom beats alone:
Heart with heart divinely blending

In the love that Gods have known,

Soul's sweet interchange of feeling,

Melting tears, - he never knows;
Each hard sense the hard one steeling,
Arms against a world of foes.

Alive as the wind-harp, how lightly soever

If wooed by the Zephyr, to music will quiver,
Hope and to Fear;

Is Woman to

Ah, tender one! still at the shadow of grieving,

How quiver the chords - how thy bosom is heavingHow trembles thy glance through the tear!

Man's dominion, war and labor,

Might to right the Statute gave;

Laws are in the Scythian's sabre;

Where the Mede reigned, see the Slave!

Peace and Meekness grimly routing,

Prowls the War lust, rude and wild;

Eris rages, hoarsely shouting,

Where the vanished Graces smiled.

But Woman, the Soft One, persuasively prayeth;
Of the mild realm of manners the sceptre she swayeth;
She lulls, as she looks from above,

The Discord whose hell for its victims is gaping,

And blending awhile the forever-escaping,

Whispers Hate to the Image of Love.

True the Dog that helps to lead them,
One gay Ram in front we see:

What the flock, and who doth heed them,
Sheep and shepherd,- tell to me?

Bulwer's Translation.

A

THE POWER OF SONG

RAIN-FLOOD from the mountain riven,

It leaps in thunder forth to-day;

Before its rush the crags are driven,

The oaks uprooted whirled away!

Awed yet in awe all wildly gladdening

The startled wanderer halts below;

He hears the rock-born waters maddening,

Nor wits the source from whence they go:
So, from their high, mysterious founts, along,
Stream on the silenced world the waves of song!

Knit with the threads of life forever,

By those dread powers that weave the woof,— Whose art the singer's spell can sever?

Whose breast has mail to music proof?
Lo, to the bard a wand of wonder

The herald of the gods has given;
He sinks the soul the death-realm under,
Or lifts it breathless up to heaven,-
Half sport, half earnest, rocking its devotion
Upon the tremulous ladder of emotion.

As when in hours the least unclouded,
Portentous, strides upon the scene
Some fate before from wisdom shrouded,
And awes the startled souls of men,-
Before that stranger from another,

Behold how this world's great ones bow;
Mean joys their idle clamor smother,

The mask is vanished from the brow:
And from truth's sudden, solemn flag unfurled
Fly all the craven falsehoods of the world!

To scare the idler thoughts away,

To lift the earthly up to heaven,

To wake the spirit from the clay!

One with the gods the bard: before him
All things unclean and earthly fly;
Hushed are all meaner powers, and o'er him
The dark fate swoops unharming by:
And while the soother's magic measures flow,
Smoothed every wrinkle on the brows of woe!

Even as a child, that after pining

For the sweet absent mother, hears
Her voice, and round her neck entwining
Young arms, vents all its soul in tears:

So by harsh custom far estranged,

Along the glad and guileless track,

To childhood's happy home unchanged

The swift song wafts the wanderer back,—

Snatched from the cold and tormal world, and prest By the great mother to her glowing breast!

Bulwer's Translation.