A woman on an empire's throne
Has sat in queenly pride,
And swayed the sceptre of her power
O'er land and ocean wide:
A crown of gold adorned the head
That held a nation's fate,
And courtly knights and princely peers
Did on her bidding wait.
A woman too in ancient days
Has borne the warrior's brand,
And by heroic deed performed
Has saved her native land.
She too has sung inspiring songs,
And told entrancing tales;
Has softened and has swayed the mind
Where bolder genius fails.
But nobler far than thronèd queen,
Or heroine of fame,
Or she who by her potent pen
Has won illustrious name,
Is she who seeks the needy out,
Nor scorns the wretched's door,
But, with compassion Christlike, loves
To help the humble poor.
To a Star.
Dreary and dismal and dark
Is the night of life to me,
With nothing but clouds in the heaven above,
Cruelly hiding the star that I love,
Whose radiance was rapture to see.
While the blasts from the cold frozen North
Are biting right in to my soul—
While the pitiless blasts from the bleak, barren shore
Of the crystalline ocean incessantly roar,
And the tempests that sweep from the pole.
Oh! the gloom of the dark, dreary night,
Concealing the star that I love!
Oh! how bitter the anguish, bereft of its beam!
While the beings around me are such that I seem
In a dungeon of demons to move.
Oh! when will the clouds clear away?
And brighten the heaven above?
Oh! when to the starry-lit realm of the sky
In a golden car of thy beams shall I fly
To live with the star that I love?