[ { "title": "Mother's Day Proclamation", "author": "Julia Ward Howe", "lines": [ "Arise then...women of this day!", "Arise, all women who have hearts!", "Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!", "Say firmly:", "\"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,", "Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,", "For caresses and applause.", "Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn", "All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.", "We, the women of one country,", "Will be too tender of those of another country", "To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.\"", "", "From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with", "Our own. It says: \"Disarm! Disarm!", "The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.\"", "Blood does not wipe our dishonor,", "Nor violence indicate possession.", "As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil", "At the summons of war,", "Let women now leave all that may be left of home", "For a great and earnest day of counsel.", "Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.", "Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means", "Whereby the great human family can live in peace...", "Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,", "But of God -", "In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask", "That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,", "May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient", "And the earliest period consistent with its objects,", "To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,", "The amicable settlement of international questions,", "The great and general interests of peace." ], "linecount": "33" }, { "title": "Mother Mind", "author": "Julia Ward Howe", "lines": [ "I never made a poem, dear friend--", "I never sat me down, and said,", "This cunning brain and patient hand", "Shall fashion something to be read.", "Men often came to me, and prayed", "I should indite a fitting verse", "For fast, or festival, or in", "Some stately pageant to rehearse.", "(As if, than Balaam more endowed,", "I of myself could bless or curse.)", "", "Reluctantly I bade them go,", "Ungladdened by my poet-mite;", "My heart is not so churlish but", "Its loves to minister delight.", "", "But not a word I breathe is mine", "To sing, in praise of man or God;", "My Master calls, at noon or night,", "I know his whisper and his nod.", "", "Yet all my thoyghts to rhythms run,", "To rhyme, my wisdom and my wit?", "True, I consume my life in verse,", "But wouldst thou know how that is writ?", "", "'T is thus--through weary length of days,", "I bear a thought within my breast", "That greatens from my growth of soul,", "And waits, and will not be expressed.", "", "It greatens, till its hour has come,", "Not without pain, it sees the light;", "'Twixt smiles and tears I view it o'er,", "And dare not deem it perfect, quite.", "", "These children of my soul I keep", "Where scarce a mortal man may see,", "Yet not unconsecrate, dear friend,", "Baptismal rites they claim of thee." ], "linecount": "34" }, { "title": "My Last Dance", "author": "Julia Ward Howe", "lines": [ "The shell of objects inwardly consumed", "Will stand, till some convulsive wind awakes;", "Such sense hath Fire to waste the heart of things,", "Nature, such love to hold the form she makes.", "Thus, wasted joys will show their early bloom,", "Yet crumble at the breath of a caress;", "The golden fruitage hides the scathèd bough,", "Snatch it, thou scatterest wide its emptiness.", "For pleasure bidden, I went forth last night", "To where, thick hung, the festal torches gleamed;", "Here were the flowers, the music, as of old,", "Almost the very olden time it seemed.", "For one with cheek unfaded, (though he brings", "My buried brothers to me, in his look,)", "Said, `Will you dance?' At the accustomed words", "I gave my hand, the old position took.", "Sound, gladsome measure! at whose bidding once", "I felt the flush of pleasure to my brow,", "While my soul shook the burthen of the flesh,", "And in its young pride said, `Lie lightly thou!'", "", "Then, like a gallant swimmer, flinging high", "My breast against the golden waves of sound,", "I rode the madd'ning tumult of the dance,", "Mocking fatigue, that never could be found.", "", "Chide not,--it was not vanity, nor sense,", "(The brutish scorn such vaporous delight,)", "But Nature, cadencing her joy of strength", "To the harmonious limits of her right.", "", "She gave her impulse to the dancing Hours,", "To winds that sweep, to stars that noiseless turn;", "She marked the measure rapid hearts must keep", "Devised each pace that glancing feet should learn.", "", "And sure, that prodigal o'erflow of life,", "Unvow'd as yet to family or state,", "Sweet sounds, white garments, flowery coronals", "Make holy, in the pageant of our fate.", "", "Sound, measure! but to stir my heart no more--", "For, as I moved to join the dizzy race,", "My youth fell from me; all its blooms were gone,", "And others showed them, smiling, in my face.", "", "Faintly I met the shock of circling forms", "Linked each to other, Fashion's galley-slaves,", "Dream-wondering, like an unaccustomed ghost", "That starts, surprised, to stumble over graves.", "", "For graves were 'neath my feet, whose placid masks", "Smiled out upon my folly mournfully,", "While all the host of the departed said,", "`Tread lightly--thou art ashes, even as we.'" ], "linecount": "48" } ]