HYPATIA
Some fifteen centuries since, 't is true,
And half a world asunder.
Her hair was coifed Athenian-wise,
With one loose tress down-flowing;
Apollo's rapture lit her eyes,
His utterance bestowing,—
A silver flute's clear harmonies
On which a god was blowing.
Yet not of Plato's sounding spheres,
And universal Pan,
She spoke; but searched historic years,
The sisterhood to scan
Of women,—girt with ills and fears,—
Slaves to the tyrant, Man.
Their crosiered banner she unfurled,
And onward pushed her quest
Through golden ages of a world
By their deliverance blest:—
At all who stay their hands she hurled
Defiance from her breast.
I saw her burning words infuse
A warmth through many a heart,
As still, in bright successive views,
She drew her sex's part;
Discoursing, like the Lesbian Muse,
Of work, and song, and art.
Why vaunt, I thought, the past, or say
The later is the less?
Our Sappho sang but yesterday,
Of whom two climes confess
Heaven's flame within her wore away
Her earthly loveliness.
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