Poems – Page 28 – Poetry Out Loud

That in 1869 Miss Jex-Blake and four other women entered for a medical degree at the University of Edinburgh?

That the president of the College of Physicians refused to give the women the prizes they had won?

That the undergraduates insulted any professor who allowed women to compete for prizes?

That the women were stoned in the streets, and finally excluded from the medical school?

That in 1877 the British Medical Association declared women ineligible for membership?

That in 1881 the International Medical Congress excluded women from all but its “social and ceremonial meetings”?

That the Obstetrical Society refused to allow a woman’s name to appear on the title page of a pamphlet which she had written with her husband?

That according to a recent dispatch from London, many hospitals, since the outbreak of hostilities, have asked women to become resident physicians, and public authorities are daily endeavoring to obtain women as assistant medical officers and as school doctors?

(November, 1861.)

In time and measure perfect moves

  All Art whose aim is sure;

 Evolving rhyme and stars divine

  Have rules, and they endure.

Nor less the Fleet that warred for Right,

  And, warring so, prevailed,

 In geometric beauty curved,

  And in an orbit sailed.

The rebel at Port Royal felt

  The Unity overawe,

 And rued the spell. A type was here,

  And victory of Law.

I know not why, but it is true—it may,
In some way, be because he was a child
Of the fierce sun where I first wept and smiled—
I love the dark-browed Poe. His feverish day
Was spent in dreams inspired, that him beguiled,
When not along his path shone forth one ray
Of light, of hope, to guide him on the way,
That to earth’s cares he might be reconciled.
Not one of all Columbia’s tuneful choir
Has pitched his notes to such a matchless key
As Poe—the wizard of the Orphic lyre!
Not one has dreamed, has sung, such songs as he,
Who, like an echo came, an echo went,
Singing, back to his mother element.

^{translated from the Spanish by Agnes Blake Poor}

In thee, the spirit of thy native soil
Draws breath and stirs with potent fruitful life.
Thou, from the field of elemental strife,
Seizest the guerdon of thy noble toil.

Franklin before, along the slender coil
Called down the fiery sparks in heaven rife.
Traced the quick ray, like sharp dividing knife;
And to the earth brought down the lightning’s spoil.

And thou, the living glory of thy race,
Preservest for all time the spoken word;
Defying ignorance’s numbing trace;
Despising falsehood’s deadly withering breath.
The immortal tree of life thy hand conferred,
Even on the edge of the abyss of death.

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
‘Twould not be you, Niagara—nor you, ye limitless prairies—nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite—nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon’s white cones—nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes—nor Mississippi’s stream:
—This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name—the still small voice vibrating—America’s choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen—the act itself the main, the quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous’d—sea-board and inland—Texas to Maine—the Prairie States—Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West—the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling—(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity—welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
—Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify—while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell’d Washington’s, Jefferson’s, Lincoln’s sails.

’Tis a time for much rejoicing;
Let each heart be lured away;
Let each tongue, its thanks be voicing
For Emancipation Day.
Day of victory, day of glory,
For thee, many a field was gory!

Many a time in days now ended,
Hath our fathers’ courage failed,
Patiently their tears they blended;
Ne’er they to their, Maker, railed,
Well we know their groans, He numbered,
When dominions fell, asundered.

As of old the Red Sea parted,
And oppressed passed safely through,
Back from the North, the bold South, started,
And a fissure wide she drew;
Drew a cleft of Liberty,
Through it, marched our people free.

And, in memory, ever grateful,
Of the day they reached the shore,
Meet we now, with hearts e’er faithful,
Joyous that the storm is o’er.
Storm of Torture! May grim Past,
Hurl thee down his torrents fast.

Bring your harpers, bring your sages,
Bid each one the story tell;
Waft it on to future ages,
Bid descendants learn it well.
Kept it bright in minds now tender,
Teach the young their thanks to render.

Come with hearts all firm united,
In the union of a race;
With your loyalty well plighted,
Look your brother in the face,
Stand by him, forsake him never,
God is with us now, forever.

Evening at Occoquan. Rain pelts the workhouse roof.

The prison matrons are sewing together for the Red Cross

The women prisoners are going to bed in two long rows.

Some of the suffrage pickets lie reading in the dim light.

Through the dark, above the rain, rings out a cry.

We listen at the windows. (Oh, those cries from punishment cells!)

A voice calls one of us by name.

“Miss Burns! Miss Burns! Will you see that I have a drink of water?”

Lucy Burns arises; slips on the course blue prison gown.

Over it her swinging hair, red-gold, throws a regal mantle.

She begs the night-watch to give the girl water.

One of the matrons leaves her war-bandages; we see her hasten to the cell.

The light in it goes out.

The voice despairing cries:

 “She has taken away the cup and she will not bring me water.”

Rain pours on the roof. The suffragists lie awake.

The matrons work busily for the Red Cross.

It would be easy to forgive,

If I could but remember;

If I could hear, lost love of mine,

The music of your cruelties,

Shaking to sound the silent skies,

Could voice with them their song divine,

Red with pain’s leaping ember:

It would be easy to forgive,

If I could but remember.

It would be easy to forget,

If I could find lost Sorrow;

If I could kiss her plaintive face,

And break with her her bitter bread,

Could share again her woeful bed,

And know with tears her pale embrace.

Make yesterday, to-morrow:

It would be easy to forget,

If I could find lost Sorrow.

Thus of old the Douglas did:
He left his land as he was bid
With the royal heart of Robert the Bruce
In a golden case with a golden lid,

To carry the same to the Holy Land;
By which we see and understand
That that was the place to carry a heart
At loyalty and love’s command,

And that was the case to carry it in.
The Douglas had not far to win
Before he came to the land of Spain,
Where long a holy war had been

Against the too-victorious Moor;
And there his courage could not endure
Not to strike a blow for God
Before he made his errand sure.

And ever it was intended so,
That a man for God should strike a blow,
No matter the heart he has in charge
For the Holy Land where hearts should go.

But when in battle the foe were met,
The Douglas found him sore beset,
With only strength of the fighting arm
For one more battle passage yet—

And that as vain to save the day
As bring his body safe away—
Only a signal deed to do
And a last sounding word to say.

The heart he wore in a golden chain
He swung and flung forth into the plain,
And followed it crying ‘Heart or death!’
And fighting over it perished fain.

So may another do of right,
Give a heart to the hopeless fight,
The more of right the more he loves;
So may another redouble might

For a few swift gleams of the angry brand,
Scorning greatly not to demand
In equal sacrifice with his
The heart he bore to the Holy Land.

Beyond the cities I have seen,

Beyond the wrack and din,

There is a wide and fair demesne

Where I have never been.

Away from desert wastes of greed,

Over the peaks of pride,

Across the seas of mortal need

Its citizens abide.

And through the distance though I see

How stern must be the fare,

My feet are ever fain to be

Upon the journey there.

In that far land the only school

The dwellers all attend

Is built upon the Golden Rule,

And man to man is friend.

No war is there nor war’s distress,

But truth and love increase—

It is a realm of pleasantness,

And all her paths are peace.