I do not love thee less for what is done,
And cannot be undone. Thy very weakness
Hath brought thee nearer to me, and henceforth
My love will have a sense of pity in it,
Making it less a worship than before.
This will be a great day in our history; the date of a New Revolution - quite as much needed as the old one. Even now as I write they are leading old John Brown to execution in Virginia for attempting to rescue slaves! This is sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind which will come soon!
I have you fast in my fortress, And will not let you depart, But put you down into the dungeon, In the round-tower of my heart, And there will I keep you forever, Yes, forever and a day, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in the dust away!
How wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul. The intellect of man is enthroned visibly on his forehead and in his eye, and the heart of man is written on his countenance, but the soul, the soul reveals itself in the voice only.
Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere - "Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
Than the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.
But ah! what once has been shall be no more! The groaning earth in travail and in pain Brings forth its races, but does not restore, And the dead nations never rise again.
For it is the fate of a woman Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless, Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence. Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers Runnng through caverns of darkness.