It is hard to be humble when trodden; We cannot be meek when oppressed; Nor pure while our souls are made sodden With loathing that can't be confessed; Or true, while our bread and our shelter By a lying pretence is obtained-- Deceived, in deception we welter; By a touch are we evermore stained. O hard lot of woman! the creature Of a creature whose God is asleep, Or gone on a journey. You teach her She was made to sin, suffer, and weep; We wait for a new revelation, We cry for a God of our own; O God unrevealed, bring salvation, From our necks lift the collar of stone! REPOSE. I lay me down straight, with closed eyes, And pale hands folded across my breast, Thinking, unpained, of the sad surprise Of those who shall find me thus fall'n to rest; And the grief in their looks when they learn no endeavor, Can disturb my repose--for my sleep is forever. I know that a smile will lie hid in my eyes, Even a soft throb of joy stir the pulse in my breast, When they sit down to mourning, with tears and with sighs, And shudder at death, which to me is but rest. So sweet to be parted at once from our pain; To put off our care as a robe that is worn; To drop like a link broken out of a chain, And be lost in the sands by Time's tide overborne: And to know at my loss all the wildest regretting, Will be as a foot-print, washed out in forgetting. To be certain of this--that my faults perish first; That when they behold me so calmly asleep, They can but forgive me my errors at worst, And speak of my praises alone as they weep. "Whom the gods love die young," they will say; Though they should think it, they will not say so: "Whom the world pierces with thorns pass away, Grieving, yet asking and longing to go!" No, when they see how divine my repose is, They'll forget that my-life-path is not over roses; And they'll whisper together, with hands full of flowers, How always I loved them to wear on my breast; And strewing them over my bosom in showers, With hands shaken by sobs, leave me softly to rest. There is one who will come when the rest are away; One bud of a rose will he bring for my hair; He knows how I liked it, worn always that way, And his fingers will tremble while placing it there. Yes, he'll remember those soft June-day closes, When the sky was as flushed as our own crimson roses; He'll remember the flush on the sky and the flowers, And the red on my cheek where his lips had been prest; But the throes of his heart in the long, silent hours, Will disturb not my dreams, so profoundly I'll rest.