Classic Poem

Only a women, with a woman's heart,
Gentle, impassioned, modest, pure and good:
Yet thou hast nobly dared to step apart
From the old bounds prescribed to womanhood.

Hast dared to seek the long forbidden lore
That tolerates no priestess at its shrine.
Wherefore? That thy soft woman's hand might pour
Into life's poisoned chalice rich new wine.

A thousand tongues are busy with thy praise,
A thousand true hearts bless thee, as they should;
These are thy witnesses along life's ways,
These are the vouchers that thy work is good.

Is that not good which strengthens and revives
Life's panting forces, purifies their spring;
Enters her tottering citadel and drives
The usurper thence, leaving behind no sting?

Ask the poor sufferer, battling with his pain,
Longing for death to close his aching eyes,
While fever's fire is burning in each vein.
What is life's chiefest good, supremest prize?

Will he not answer thee, full fast and fain:
" Take all I have of power, position, wealth,
But give my weary heart surcease from pain;
Leave me a beggar, but restore my health? "

O gentle hand, O sympathetic heart,
In thy great mission never stop nor stay,
Till God shall call thee to life's better part,
Beyond the blight of suffering and decay.

If persecuted, thou art not the first
Of many tortured for the good they wrought;
There are, and ever have been, hearts a-thirst
To bring the best and noblest works to naught.

It recks not, lady; bravely tread thy path,
Regardless of the jeers they fling at thee;
Did they not pour a hotter, redder wrath
On one who healed of old in Galilee?

Where angels walk the earth in human guise,
The fire of persecution rages most;
But, like the fabled Phaenix, truth will rise
From the wan ashes of the holocaust.