Page:Home; or, The unlost paradise (IA homeorunlostpara00palm).pdf/114

To stanch whose wounds there needs the hand of love;
With sin, and souls debased, and dark despair;
With ignorance perverse and error blind;
With mercy's tasks untold, that well befit
Thy delicate fingers and thy facile skill;
On thee it calls, and wide before thee spreads
Such fields where love's best triumphs may be won,
As make it grand to live and toil and bear.
If thou wilt be a trifler, deep the shame!
If frivolous and vain, with all the gifts
Of God conferred to make thee seem divine,
Demons must clap their hands in fiendish glee,
And pitying Goodness turn in tears away!
Be a true woman, whatsoe'er thy place,
In solitude, or crowd, or youth, or age,
And life shall be to thee no joyless waste,
But rich in pleasures that sate not the soul.
Thyself revere; nor suffer without need
Thy robes to draggle in the common dust!
Be as God would—in thine own sphere a sun,
And round thee glorious planets shall revolve,