Man’s mind is larger than his brow of tears;
This hour is not my all of time; this place
My all of earth; nor this obscene disgrace
My all of life; and thy complacent sneers
Shall not pronounce my doom to my compeers
While the Hereafter lights me in the face,
And from the Past, as from the mountain’s base,
Rise, as I rise, the long tumultuous cheers.
And who slays me must overcome a world:
Heroes at arms, and virgins who became
Mothers of children, prophecy and song;
Walls of old cities with their flags unfurled;
Peaks, headlands, ocean and its isles of fame—
And sun and moon and all that made me strong!
_Sarah N. Cleghorn_
Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn was born at Norfolk, Virginia, February 4,
1876. She came North early in her youth and was graduated from Burr
and Burton Seminary in Manchester, Vermont (in 1895), in which town,
after a year at Radcliffe, she has lived ever since.
An ardent worker for lost causes, Miss Cleghorn’s fiery spirit
shines through _Portraits and Protests_ (1917), the first half of
which is coolly descriptive and the second half, hotly
insurrectionary verse.