Take the diamonds from my forehead—their chill weight but frets my brow!
How they glitter! radiant, faultless—but they give no pleasure now.
Once they might have saved a Poet, o'er whose bed the violet waves:
Now their lustre chills my spirit, like the light from new-made graves.
Quick! unbind the braided tresses of my coroneted hair!
Let it fall in single ringlets such as I was wont to wear.
Take that wreath of dewy violets, twine it round their golden flow;
Let the perfumed purple blossoms fall upon my brow of snow!
Simple flowers, ye gently lead me back into the sunny years,
Ere I wore proud chains of diamonds, forged of bitter, frozen tears!
Bring the silver mirror to me! I am changed since those bright days,
When I lived with my sweet mother, and a Poet sang my praise.
My blue eyes are larger, dimmer; thicker lashes veil their light;
Upon my cheek the crimson rose fast is fading to the white.
I am taller, statelier, slighter, than I was in days of yore:—
If his eyes in heaven behold me, does he praise me as before?
Proudly swells the silken rustle—all around is wealth and state,—
Dearer far the early roses twining round the wicker gate,
Where my mother came at evening with the saint-like forehead pale,
And the Poet sat beside her, conning o'er his rhythmed tale.
As he read the linked lines over, she would sanction, disapprove:
Soft and musical the pages, but he never sang of love.
I had lived through sixteen summers, he was only twenty-one,
And we three still sat together at the hour of setting sun.
Lowly was the forest cottage, but the sweetbrier wreathed it well;
'Mid its violets and roses, bees and robins loved to dwell.
Wilder forms of larch and hemlock climbed the mountain at its side;
Fairy-like a rill came leaping where the quivering harebells sighed.
Glittering, bounding, singing, dancing, ferns and mosses loved its track;
Lower in it dipped the willows, as to kiss the cloudland's rack.
Soon there came a stately lover,—praised my beauty, softly smiled:
'He would make my mother happy,'—I was but a silly child!
Came a dream of sudden power—fairest visions o'er me glide—
Wider spheres would open for me;—dazzled, I became a bride:
Fondly deemed my lonely mother would be freed from sordid care;
Splendor I might pour around her, every joy with her might share.
Then the Poet, who had never breathed one word of love to me,—
We might shape his life-course for him, give him culture wide and free.
How I longed to turn the pages, with a husband's hand as guide,
Of the long-past golden ages, art and science at my side!
To my simple fancy seemed it almost everything he knew—
Ah! he might have won affection, faithful, fervent, trusting, true!
I was happy, never dreaming wealth congeals the human soul,
Freezing all its generous impulse—I but saw its wide control.
Years have passed—a larger culture poured strange knowledge through my mind—
I have learned to read man's nature: better I were ever blind!
How can I take upon me what I look upon with scorn,
Or learn to brook my own contempt, or trample the forlorn?
I cannot live by rote and rule; I was not born a slave
To narrow fancies; I must feel, although a husband rave!
I cannot choose my friends because I know them rich, or great;
My heart elects the noble,—what cares love for wealth or state?
Very lovely are my pictures, saints and angels throng my hall—
But with shame my cheek is flushing, and my quivering lashes fall:
Can I gaze on pictured actions, daring deeds, and emprise high,
And not feel my degradation while these fetters round me lie?
Once the Poet came to see me, but it gave me nought but pain;
I was glad to see the Gifted go, ne'er to return again.
For my husband scorning told me: 'True, his lines were very sweet,
But his clothes, so worn and seedy—scarce for me acquaintance meet!
Artists, poets, men of genius, truly should be better paid,
But not holding our position, cannot be our friends,' he said.
'As gentlemen to meet them were a very curious thing;
They were happier in their garrets—there let them sigh or sing.
There were Travers and De Courcy—could he ask them home to dine,
At the risk of meeting truly such strange fellows o'er their wine?'
Then he said, 'My cheeks were peachy, lips were coral, curls were gold,
But he liked them braided crown-like, and with pearls and diamonds rolled.
I was once a little peasant; now I stood a jewelled queen—
Fitter that a calmer presence in his stately wife were seen!'
Then he gave a gorgeous card-case; set with rubies, Roman gold,
Handed me a paper with it, strands of pearls around it rolled;
Names of all his wife should visit I would find upon the roll:—
Found I none I loved within it—not one friend upon the scroll!
And my mother, God forgive me! I was glad to see her go,
Ere the current of her loving heart had turned like mine to snow.
Must I still seem fair and stately, choking down my bosom's strife,
Because 'all deep emotions were unseemly in his wife'?
Must I gasp 'neath diamonds' glitter—walk in lustrous silken sheen—
Leaving those I love in anguish while I play some haughty scene?
I am choking! closer round me crowds convention's stifling vault—
Every meanness's called a virtue—every virtue deemed a fault!
Every generous thought is scandal; every noble deed is crime;
Every feeling's wrapped in fiction, and truth only lives in rhyme!
No;—I am not fashion's minion,—I am not convention's slave!
If 'obedience is for woman,' still she has a soul to save.
Must I share their haughty falsehood, take my part in social guile,
Cut my dearest friends, and stab them with a false, deceitful smile?
Creeping like a serpent through me, faint, I feel a deadly chill,
Freezing all the good within me, icy fetters chain my will.
Do I grow like those around me? will I learn to bear my part
In this glittering world of fashion, taming down a woman's heart?
Must I lower to my husband? is it duty to abate
All the higher instincts in me, till I grow his fitting mate?
Shall I muse on noble pictures, turn the poet's stirring page,
And grow base and mean in action, petty with a petty age?
I am heart-sick, weary, weary! tell me not that this life,
Where all that's truly living must be pruned by fashion's knife!—
I can make my own existence—spurn his gifts, and use my hands,
Though the senseless world of fashion for the deed my memory brands.
Quick! unbraid the heavy tresses of my coroneted hair—
Let its gold fall in free ringlets such as I was wont to wear.
I am going back to nature. I no more will school my heart
To stifle its best feelings, play an idle puppet's part.
I will seek my banished mother, nestle closely on her breast;
Noble, faithful, kind, and loving, there the tortured one may rest.
We will turn the Poets' pages, learn the noblest deeds to act,
Till the fictions in their beauty shall be lived as simple fact.
I will mould a living statue, make it generous, strong, and high,
Humble, meek, self-abnegating, formed to meet the Master's eye.
Oh, the glow of earnest culture! Oh, the joy of sacrifice!
The delight to help another! o'er all selfish thoughts to rise!
Farewell, cold and haughty splendor—how you chilled me when a bride!
Hollow all your mental efforts; meanness all your dazzling pride!
Put the diamonds in their caskets! pearls and rubies, place them there!
I shall never sigh to wear them with the violets in my hair.
Freedom! with no eye upon me freezing all my fiery soul;
Free to follow nature's dictates; free from all save God's control.
I am going to the cottage, with its windows small and low,
Where the sweetbrier twines its roses and the Guelder rose its snow.
I will climb the thymy mountains where the pines in sturdy might
Follow nature's holy bidding, growing ever to the light;
Tracking down the leaping streamlet till the willows on it rise,
Watch its broad and faithful bosom strive to mirror back the skies.
Through the wicker gate at evening with my mother I will come,
With a little book, the Poet's, to read low at set of sun.
'Tis a gloomy, broken record of a love poured forth in death,
Generous, holy, and devoted, sung with panting, dying breath.
By the grassy mound we'll read it where he calmly sleeps in God,—
My gushing tears may stream above—they cannot pierce the sod!
Hand in hand we'll sit together by the lowly mossy grave—
Oh, God! I blazed with jewels, but the noble dared not save!
I am going to the cottage, there to sculpture my own soul,
Till it fill the high ideal of the Poet's glowing roll.

Stay, lovely dream! I waken! hear the clanking of my chain!
Feel a hopeless vow is on me—I can ne'er be free again!
His wife! I've sworn it truly! I must bear his freezing eye,
Feel his blighting breath upon me while all nobler instincts die!
Feel the Evil gain upon me as the weary moments glide,
Till I hiss, a jewelled serpent, fit companion, at his side.
Vain is struggle—vain is writhing—vain are sobs and stifled gasps—
I must wear my brilliant fetters though my life-blood stain their clasps!
Hark! he calls! tear out the violets! quick! the diamonds in my hair!
There's a ball to-night at Travers'—'tis his will I should be there.
Splendid victim in his pageant, though my tortured head should ache,
Yet I must be brilliant, joyous, if my throbbing heart should break!
I shudder! quick! my dress of rose, my tunic of point lace—
If fine enough, he will not read the anguish in my face!
I know one place he dare not look—it is so still and deep—
He dare not lift the winding sheet that veils my last, long sleep!
He dreads the dead! the coffin lid will shield me from his breath—
His eye no more will torture——Joy! I shall be free in death!
Free to rest beside the Poet. He will shun the lowly grave:
There my mother soon will join us, and the violets o'er us wave.