Fourteen sonnets and poems/To M. A. L.

by Henry Wilmarth Hazzen

The nineteenth century is woman's.
Victor Hugo.

To M. A. L.

O NOBLE woman, first among the blest,
To fill the measure of a high ideal,
With far more traits substantial, rich and real,
Than seldom yet were by one soul possessed,
Obeying ever duty's stern behest;
Too great by far to gaze by special theme,
But in all walks and paths of life supreme,
Thy bosom burning with sublime unrest.
True to thyself, thy country, and thy kind;
Impatient only of the base and small,
Dost our dull age of woman's worth remind;
And when we here great Hugo's words recall,
That the nineteenth will her century be,
Finds proof enough to know but one like thee.