Page:Woman in the Nineteenth Century 1845.djvu/183

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APPENDIX.

177

“REVERENCE.”

⁠“As an ancestral heritage revere

All learning, and all thought. The painter's fame

Is thine, whate'er thy lot, who honorest grace.

And need enough in this low time, when they,

Who seek to captivate the fleeting notes

Of heaven's sweet beauty, must despair almost,

So heavy and obdurate show the hearts

Of their companions. Honor kindly then

Those who bear up in their so generous arms

The beautiful ideas of matchless forms;

For were these not portrayed, our human fate, —

Which is to be all high, majestical,

To grow to goodness with each coming age,

Till virtue leap and sing for joy to see

So noble, virtuous men, — would brief decay;

And the green, festering slime, oblivious, haunt

About our common fate. Oh honor them!

But what to all true eyes has chiefest charm,

And what to every breast where beats a heart

Framed to one beautiful emotion,—to

One sweet and natural feeling, lends a grace

To all the tedious walks of common life,

This is fair woman,—woman, whose applause

Each poet sings,—woman the beautiful.

Not that her fairest brow, or gentlest form

Charm us to tears; not that the smoothest check,

Where ever rosy tints have made their home,

So rivet us on her; but that she is

The subtle, delicate grace,—the inward grace,

For words too excellent; the noble, true,

The majesty of earth; the summer queen;

In whose conceptions nothing but what's great

Has any right. And, O! her love for him,

Who does but his small part in honoring her;

Discharging a sweet office, sweeter none,

Mother and child, friend, counsel and repose;—

Nought matches with her, nought has leave with her

To highest human praise. Farewell to him

Who reverences not with an excess

Of faith the beauteous sex; all barren he

Shall live a living death of mockery.

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