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APPENDIX.
| Ah! had but words the power, what could we say |
| Of woman! We, rude men, of violent phrase, |
| Harsh action, even in repose inwardly harsh; |
| Whose lives walk blustering on high stilts, removed |
| From all the purely gracious influence |
| Of mother earth. To single from the host |
| Of angel forms one only, and to her |
| Devote our deepest heart and deepest mind |
| Seems almost contradiction. Unto her |
| We owe our greatest blessings, hours of cheer, |
| Gay smiles, and sudden tears, and more than these |
| A sure perpetual love. Regard her as |
| She walks along the vast still earth; and see! |
| Before her flies a laughing troop of joys, |
| And by her side treads old experience, |
| With never-failing voice admonitory; |
| The gentle, though infallible, kind advice, |
| The watchful care, the fine regardfulness, |
| Whatever mates with what we hope to find, |
| All consummate in her the summer queen. |
| To call past ages better than what now |
| Man is enacting on life's crowded stage, |
| Cannot improve our worth; and for the world |
| Blue is the sky as ever, and the stars |
| Kindle their crystal flames at soft-fallen eve |
| With the same purest lustre that the east |
| Worshipped. The river gently flows through fields |
| Where the broad-leaved corn spreads out, and loads |
| Its ear as when the Indian tilled the soil. |
| The dark green pine,—green in the winter's cold, |
| Still whispers meaning emblems, as of old; |
| The cricket chirps, and the sweet, eager birds |
| In the sad woods crowd their thick melodies; |
| But yet, to common eyes, life's poetry |
| Something has faded, and the cause of this |
| May be that man, no longer at the shrine |
| Of woman, kneeling with true reverence, |
| In spite of field, wood, river, stars and sea |
| Goes most disconsolate. A babble now, |
| A huge and wind-swelled babble, fills the place |
| Of that great adoration which of old |
| Man had for woman. In these days no more |
| Is love the pith and marrow of man's fate. |
