Poems (Henderson)/A Voice of the Heart

by Elizabeth Henderson

A VOICE OF THE HEART.

Blow, Oh winds, from farthest heaven;
 Circle suns, and waters roll,
Thou art bringing Life's fruition,
 To the woman's weary soul.
Many centuries have drifted,
 Down the ceaseless path of Time,
Men of power, law and precept,
 Made to stifle Lust and Crime.

Many a sun hath set and risen;
 On great triumph of man's skill,
Science's gates open before him,
 Where he wandered at his will.
But her doors were barred to woman,
 All her glories from the gaze,
Of the woman, seeing dimly,
 Through the Future's tangled maze,

All the great expansive genius;
 That her soul held cramped in thought,
All the embryo worlds of being,
 That great Wisdom's hand had wrought.
But no daring hand was lifted,
 Clearing a path for woman's right,
Through the gloomy depths of ages,
 She has struggled in the night.

Oh! the heart-woes that lie hidden,
 Deep, so deep, that none can see,
Oh! the graves that hold unnumbered,
 Wrongs, in direst secrecy.
Oh! that many a costly stone,
 Had written on its snowy face,
"Murder, murder, trust in manhood,
 Brought her to this sad disgrace."

Not by cord or sharpened steel,
 Do the fair young lives fade out,
But the heart's most careful winning,
 And its careless wearing, torture
More than brand, or lash, or knout.
 Woman, woman, who hast suffered,
Wrongs and sins like unto thee,
 Woman, woman, thou hast borne them,
With a martyr's purity.

Pulpit, press, and they in honor,
 Held by social law's grim might,
They have scorned thy pleading voices;
 They have spurned thy prayer for right
Queen art thou of hearth and home,
 Oh! woman, but from thy high throne,
By the hand of faithless judgment,
 Hast thou from thy place been torn.

Who but thou whose pangs of travail,
 E'en the angels dread to see,
Clasping close thine infant blessing,
 Should its fittest guardian be.
But the darkening clouds are lifting,
 From thy Future's sunlit sky,
Truest dower of right and blessing,
 God shall give thee bye and bye.