COMPLAINT TO THE VIRGIN.
FROM A CUBAN POETESS.
Mother ineffable, whose radiant brow
The stars have crowned,
O’er all earth’s daughters chosen, thou
The sinless found;
Of Adam’s fallen race, the first and last
Untouched by strife,
Whose beauteous feet unstained and pure have passed
The snares of life.
The angelic heralds at those spotless feet
Once bent the knee,
And now adore at the effulgent seat
Eternally.
A gift too pure and bright for earthly bloom,
Flower of the sky;
The odors of whose matchless grace perfume
The courts on high.
Look down in pity from thy lofty throne,
Through realms of light,
To where thy sorrowing sister walks alone
In deepest night.
Oh, see the endless waves of anguish fierce
That o’er me roll!
Hast thou not bled? did not the sword once pierce
Thy tender soul?
Beating the breakers on the outer bar
My vessel lies;
For me there beams no friendly guiding-star,
No beacons rise.
Blest beacon seen in my despairing dreams,
Burst forth on me,
And light my stormy pathway with thy beams,
Star of the sea.
O baleful night, when some malignant blast,
Mocking and wild,
Into an orphan’s cradle rudely cast
A sleeping child!
Of careless childhood’s flowers and smiles and tears,
The tears were mine.
Alas! I gather in maturer years
No fruit or wine.
All night I bruise my failing wings in vain,
Seeking for rest—
A bird unmated on an arid plain
Without a nest.
I roam a timid stranger on the earth—
A foreign land—
Bewildered by the light, the joy and mirth
On every hand.
A vine-clad mountain to the beaming skies
That lifts its crest,
While an abyss of untold horror lies
Beneath its breast.
Some loving souls at birth are consecrated
To pain and grief;
Through gloomy vales they stray, unknown, unmated,
Without relief.
I seek no longer these sad mysteries
To penetrate;
I must not murmur at the high decrees
That fix my fate.
They say that God regards with pitying eye
The poor and weak,
Smiting the haughty head, and passing by
The low and meek.
No daring oak, whose branches, heaven defying,
Pierce the blue sky;
A blighted leaf before the tempest flying,
A reed am I.
A poor blind pilgrim through the wilderness
Groping my way,
Striving with agonizing tears to press
From night to day.
A heart whence all illusions long have perished
Seeks not for bliss.
I ask not human love, O Mother cherished,
I ask but this:
A lowly shelter far from tongues maligning
And bitter sneers;
There let me pray and quench all fierce repining
With grateful tears.
And some glad morning through my cloister swelling,
A golden portal
May burst, and flood with rosy light my dwelling,
And joys immortal.