Was the hand that you gave her as white and clean as that of her womanhood?

Go, measure yourself by her standard; look back on the years that have fled!

Then ask, if you need, why she tells you that the love of her girlhood is dead.

She cannot look down to her lover: her love like her soul, aspires;

He must stand by her side, or above her, who would kindle its holy fires.

Now farewell! For the sake of old friendship I have ventured to tell you the truth,

As plainly, perhaps, and as bluntly, as I might in our earlier youth.

LUCY LARCOM.

Born in Massachusetts 1826

A LOYAL WOMAN'S NO.

No! is my answer from this cold, bleak ridge,
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.

Pity me, if you will! I look at you

With something that is kinder far than scorn, And think-" Ah, well! I might have grovel'd, too; I might have walk'd there, fetter'd and forsworn."

I am of nature weak as others are;

I might have chosen comfortable ways;
Once from these heights I shrank, beheld afar,
In the soft lap of quiet easy days.

I might, I will not hide it,—once I might

Have lost, in the warm whirlpools of your voice,

The sense of Evil, the stern cry of Right;
But Truth has steer'd me free, and I rejoice.

Not with the triumph that looks back to jeer
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:-

I am not yours, because you prize in me
What is the lowest in my own esteem:
Only my flowery levels can you see,

Nor of my heaven-smit summits do you

:

dream.

I am not yours, because you love yourself:
Your heart has scarcely room for me beside.
I will not be shut in with name and pelf;
spurn the shelter of your narrow pride!

I

Not yours,- ---because you are not man enough
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!
Not yours, because, in this the nation's need,
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!
Whether man's thought can find too lofty steeps
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.

Who weds me must at least with equal pace Sometimes move with me at my being's height: To follow him to his superior place,

His rarer atmosphere, were keen delight.

You lure me to the valley: men should call
Up to the mountains, where the air is clear.
Win me and help me climbing, if at all!
Beyond these peaks great harmonies I hear :-

The morning chaunt of Liberty and Law!
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!

The men and women mated for that time
Tread not the soothing mosses of the plain;
Their hands are join'd in sacrifice sublinie;
Their feet firm set in upward paths of pain.

Sleep your thick sleep, and go your drowsy way!
You cannot hear the voices in the air!
Ignoble souls will shrivel in that day;

The brightness of its coming can you bear?

For me, I do not walk these hills alone:

Heroes who pour'd their blood out for the truth, Women whose hearts bled, martyrs all unknown, Here catch the sunrise of immortal youth

On their pale cheeks and consecrated brows :—
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!

HANNAH BINDING SHOES.

POOR lone Hannah,

Sitting at the window, binding shoes!
Faded, wrinkled,

Sitting, stitching, in a mournful muse!
Bright-eyed beauty once was she,
When the bloom was on the tree:
Spring and winter,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Not a neighbour

Passing nod or answer will refuse,
To her whisper-

"Is there from the fishers any news?"

O, her heart's adrift, with one
On an endless voyage gone!
Night and morning,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Fair young Hannah

Ben, the sunburnt fisher, gayly woos:
Hale and clever,

For a willing heart and hand he sues.
May-day skies are all aglow,
And the waves are laughing so!
For her wedding

Hannah leaves her window and her shoes.

May is passing:

'Mid the apple-boughs a pigeon coos.
Hannah shudders,

For the mild southwester mischief brews.
Round the rocks of Marblehead,
Outward bound, a schooner sped :
Silent, lonesome,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

"Tis November,

Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews;
From Newfoundland

Not a sail returning will she lose,-
Whispering hoarsely-"Fishermen !
Have you, have you heard of Ben?"
Old with watching,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Twenty winters

Bleach and tear the ragged shore she views.
Twenty seasons,-

Never one has brought her any news.
Still her dim eyes silently

Chase the white sails o'er the sea:
Hopeless, faithful,

Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

THE CURTAIN OF THE DARK.

THE curtain of the dark

Is pierced by many a rent:
Out of the star-wells, spark on spark
Trickles through night's torn tent.

Grief is a tatter'd tent

Where through God's light doth shine: Who glances up, at every rent

Shall catch a ray divine.

SLEEP-SONG.

HUSH the homeless baby's crying,
Tender Sleep!

Every folded violet

May the outer storm forget. Those wet lids with kisses drying, Through them creep!

Soothe the soul that lies thought-weary, Murmurous Sleep!

Like a hidden brooklet's song,
Rippling gorgeous woods among,
Tinkling down the mountains dreary,
White and steep.

Breathe thy balm upon the lonely,
Gentle Sleep!

As the twilight breezes bless
With sweet scents the wilderness:
Ah, let warm white dove-wings only
Round them sweep!

O'er the agèd pour thy blessing,
Holy Sleep!

Like a soft and ripening rain,
Falling on the yellow grain: