Poems Sigourney 1834/Intellectual Wants of Greece

by Lydia Sigourney

INTELLECTUAL WANTS OF GREECE.

TO AMERICAN FEMALES.

Greece was an hungered, and ye gave her bread,
    Unclad and shuddering from the inclement blast,
And ye, in love, a sheltering mantle spread;
    For this a voice of gratitude hath past
O'er the broad ocean-wave, and thousands bear
Your name upon their lips, in the hushed hour of prayer.

There is a cry for knowledge, from that clime
    Which held her lamp to earth's benighted eye,
In the dim ages of remembered time:
    Rise! shed the beams of immortality
On the mind's prison-house: so shall your fame
Endure, when this world's pomp hath fed Destruction's flame.

I saw your infants for the needle's care
    Renounce their promised holiday-delight:
Saw even your servants with a joyous air
    Give for the "classic land" their hard earned mite;
Mothers! ye gazed with rapture-kindled brow,
Ye prompted that blest work, why do ye linger now?

Sisters! on whom the manna-shower is strewed,
    Who at eternal fountains drink your fill,
Should a redundance of your angel food
    Turn from the starving mind Compassion's thrill?
Hear ye the gasping of the famished soul?
Haste! reach the bread of Heaven; say to the sick—be whole.