WRITTEN FOR THE GRADUATING CLASS AT SMITH COLLEGE, JUNE , 1885

I

O VERY fair and strong she stands to-day,
This youngest daughter to receive her dower;
I see the wise World-mother smiling lay
Gift after gift before her, bid her choose
The richest, purest, rarest, lest she lose
One happiness, one power.

II

Thou wise World-mother! it was long to wait
Hoarding thy treasures while the slow years passed,
Keeping thy cherished plan inviolate
With thine inscrutable, sweet smile, until
This golden hour has risen to fulfil
Thy dearest wish at last.

III

For this thy child, a woman earnest-eyed,
Who wears thy gracious favors worthily,
Pledges her honest faith, her constant pride,
To live her life as one who holds in trust
God's gold to give again, who fearless must
Face the great days to be.

IV

Naught is denied her: mind alert, intent;
Eyes that look deep into the heart of things;
A skilful hand to shape; a firm will bent
On purposes that have no petty ends;
A strength that falters not for foes nor friends;
A soul that has swift wings.

V

Deep has she read of poet and of priest;
Wit of philosopher and lore of sage;
And science, with its growth of great from least,
Who bids earth's cowering, secret things appear,
And stand out in this latter sunshine, clear
As type upon God's page.

VI

Yet finds she wiser teachers, friends more dear,
In shadowy wood-path and on clover slope;
When the June twilight slow and still creeps near,
And rocks put on their purple majesty;
When stars across the dark tell glimmeringly
Her happy horoscope.

VII

And sometimes, when the low moon lies asleep
On its cloud-bed, like a fair child, play-spent,
Across the river-fields and up the steep
Come, silent stealing through the silver mist,
Strange visitors, whose holy lips have kissed
Death's own, yet are content.

VIII

Wide eyes that seem to bring from far-off years
Their loves and hopes and tragedies again;
And voices sadly cadenced to young ears,
Yet musical with old-time gentleness;
And smiles that half conceal and half confess
Some unforgotten pain.

IX

And one with voice that hath a dauntless ring,
Saith, " From thy life, Sweet, may the gods avert
The need of this strange gift I dare to bring,
A Roman woman's strength, who will not spare
A quivering death-wound at the heart to wear,
And say it doth not hurt. "

X

Speaketh a voice whose sound is of the sea:
" Oft have I paced the beach, while sheer above
Towered the rocks, waiting immutably
As my heart waited. From Inarime,
Across the years, Vittoria brings to-day
Her gift of tireless love. "

XI

As starlight comes through myriad miles of space,
Undimmed, untarnished, waxing never old,
So shineth (nor can centuries efface)
One light set in the sky of time afar,
Thy soul, Antigone, that like a star
Burneth with flame of gold.

XII

Antigone, what woman were not glad
To feel against her life the touch of thine?
To meet thine eyes, so unafraid, if sad?
To hear thy words, to clasp thy potent hand?
To read thy womanhood as a command
To sacrifice divine?

XIII

Yet past nor present can avail to fill
This woman's thoughts, who leans and listens best
To voices of the future, calling shrill,
With strain and stress of troubled destinies,
Content she leaves her dreams and reveries
For life's sublime unrest.

XIV

With steadfast step she walks in darkened ways
Where women's curses sound, and children's cries;
Her gentleness shall win, her strength shall raise,
Her love shall cleanse, her righteous words shall burn,
And wasted, piteous baby-lips shall learn
Glad laughter from her eyes.

XV

Shadow' shall shrink, and sunlight shine for her;
And love shall touch her life like a caress;
And loyal human hearts shall minister
To her heart's need, who hath for joy, for pain,
For sorrow's mourning, ay! and for sin's stain
Unending tenderness.

XVI

Around her closes, quivering and tense,
Life's narrow circle of perplexities;
The clamoring hours, the hurrying events;
Yet shall she pass through tumult and through crowd
Serene, as one who hears God's voice ring loud
Across far silences.

. . . . . . .

Who climbs life's mountain walks with tardy tread,
For love of flowers that smile about his feet,
For love of pines that whisper overhead,
For love of wandering bird-calls, shy and sweet;
Yet where the birds come not, beyond the pines,
Past rock and steep and cloud, the final height
Forever rises silent, stainless white,
Where shadow never falls, where latest shines
The lingering light.