sleeps.One rosy cheek lies pillow’d on her hand,
And through her waving, wandering auburn curls
The zephyr cupids frolic merrily,
Tossing them to and fro upon her brow
In sportive play. It is a brow of thought,
Endow’d by God and Nature, though, alas!
Held in paralysis by selfish laws
Which strive to steal a fair inheritance.
And bid the woman bow the knee to man.
Maremna sleeps.
The white lids veil the large grey, lustrous eyes,
The auburn lashes sweep the sunlit cheeks,
Yet are they wet, and cling to the soft skin
Whereon the damp of tears is glazing fast.
Maremna’s sleep is not the sleep of rest.
For ever and anon the blood-red lips
Unclose, and strive to speak, but yet remain
Silent and speechless, tied by some dread force
Which intervenes, denying to the brain
That comfort which the power of speech doth bring.
Who is Maremna?—
A noble’s child, rear’d amidst Nature’s scenes,
Her earliest friends I They guided her first steps,
Speaking of God and His stupendous works
Long ere Religion’s dogma intervened.
Child of a chieftain o’er whose broad domains
She roamed, a happy, free, unfetter’d waif,
Loving the mountain crag and forest lone,
The straths and corries, rugged glens and haunts
Of the red deer and dove-like ptarmigan;
Loving the language of the torrent’s roar,
Or the rough river’s wild bespated rush;
Loving the dark pine woods, amidst whose glades
The timid roe hides from the gaze of man;
Loving the great grey ocean’s varying face,
Now calm, now rugged, rising into storm.
Anon so peaceful, so serene, and still.
When passion’s fury sinks beneath the wave.
Maremna sleeps
Amidst the scenes that rear’d her early years
Yet is Maremna now no more a child,
Nor guileless with the innocence of youth.
Hers it has been to roam God’s mighty world.
And learn the ways and woful deeds of men.
And, weary with her world-wide pilgrimage,
Maremna’s steps have sought her early haunts.
Hoping for rest where childhood once did play.
Rest for Maremna!
An idle thought; a foolish sentiment!
Unto the brain which God has bidden “Think”
No rest can come from Solitude’s retreat;
For solitude breeds thought, and shapes its course
And bids it live within the form of speech,
Or bids the mighty pen proclaim its life,
And write its words upon the scrolls of men.
Thus with Maremna.
Rest she has sought, hut sought it all in vain.
What God decrees no mortal hand can stay.
“Think.” He ordains, and lo! the brain must think,
Nor close its eyes upon the mammoth truth.
Truth must prevail! Truth must be held aloft!
What matter if the cold world sneers or scoffs?
Sneering and scoffing is the work of man,
Truth, the almighty handiwork of God.
It may be dimm’d, it may be blurr’d from sight.
Yet must it triumph in the end, and win;
For is not truth a sun which cannot die.
Though unbelief may cloud it for a time?
Maremna sleeps;
Sleeps where in childhood oft she lay and dream’d,
Dream’d of fantastic worlds and fairy realms.
And now, in sleep, Maremna dreams again.
But dreams no more of elves and laughing sprites.
Hers, though a dream, is stern reality.
Mingled with visions of a future day;
Hers is a dream of hideous, living wrong,
Wrong which ’tis woman’s duty to proclaim
And man’s to right, and right right speedily.
Or crush the form of justice underfoot.
Maremna sleeps.
And in her sleep a vision fills her brain.
This is Maremna’s Dream.
Book I
I
“I AM tired, mother.”
“Tired, child! And why?”
“Mother, I have been spouting to the wild sea waves.”
“And what have you been saying to them, Gloria?”
“Ah, mother! ever so much.”
Let us look at the speakers, a mother and child, the former as she stands leaning against a stone balustrade, which overlooks a small Italian garden, upon which the sun is shining brightly. Far out beyond is the gleaming sea, and
