What Elbert wish’d,
When first I cross’d the sea, was more than wrought.
I brought back not alone what books could give,
But in myself a sense of others’ wants,—
For in my heart a wondrous wealth of love;
Ay, wealth it was; though, like the ore in mines,
It only proved that that which lived had died.
What though my life, complete with her alone,
Seem’d always rent? a weight of broken quartz
That only gleam’d where it had fractur’d been?
That weight was wealth that sparkled back to greet
Each glance of sunshine.
Thus I found that love
At times may prove a treasure even dead,
If dead enough in spirits yet alive.
Mine, thwarted so, had made me more the man
That Elbert wish’d,—a man for all mankind;—
No special pleader for a special class
Whose grasping greed crowds out the general good;—
But one who pleads for all fair rights for all.
Nor would I bide content with utter’d words.
Too often, these, when widest welcomed, wake
But echoes brief as breath from which they spring.
I craved the mission less of roaring waves
Than of the rare wrought shells that, evermore,
When storms are gone, suggest their living presence.