Zinzendorff and Other Poems/Establishment of a Female College in New-Grenada, South America
ESTABLISHMENT OF A FEMALE COLLEGE IN NEW-GRENADA, SOUTH AMERICA.
Ye have done well, my brethren. Thus to cast
The balm of healing at the fountain's head
Was wisely done. For on the thousand streams
That murmur freshly round your hallowed homes
Its blessedness shall flow. Well have ye scanned
With philosophic eye, their latent worth,
Who in the weakness of a tender frame,
And shrinking consciousness of ill, might seem
Of utile import. Yet those fragile forms,
Now trembling in their beauty and their fear,
Shall kindle with new energies: high hope
And martyr-like endurance, and deep strength
To toil untired, to suffer and be still,
And all those deathless sympathies that spring
Up from a mother's love. These shall be theirs;
And what you trust to them of mental wealth,
Knowledge, or virtue, or the truth of God,
Shall blossom round the cradle of your sons,
And bear rich harvest in your country's fame.
Realms there have been, which, like your own did rend
A despot's shackles from their giant-breast,
And rush to freedom. But the baneful breath
Of ignorance, or luxury, or sin,
Swept o'er them as a siroch, and they sank
Amid the waste of ages. They, perchance,
Did look on woman as a worthless thing,
A cloistered gem, a briefly-fading flower,
Remembering not that she had kingly power
O'er the young soul. They deemed not that those lines,
Graved so indelibly, that all the storms
And water-floods of Time erase them not,
Which even stern Death peruses when he seals
The scroll of life up for the judgment-bar,
Were from a mother's pencil.
Ye have judged,
That 'mid a nation's elements, her hand
Might cast a healthful leaven, and her lip,
Even from the mouldering pillow of the grave,
Reach with its dove-like, heaven-taught eloquence,
A race unborn. According to your faith
Be your reward. And may the glorious voice
Of liberty, from Andes' cloud-wreathed crown,
Through every region whence your rivers hoard
Their ocean tribute, go with godlike strength,
Wakening new nations to Jehovah's praise.