Poems (Denver)/Hope in Adversity

by Mary Caroline Denver

HOPE IN ADVERSITY.

I saw a noble heart bow down
 Beneath the rod of fate;
Turn into paths it had not known,
 Dismayed and desolate.
Dark ruin hovered overhead,
 Destruction spread around,
Honor seemed buried with the dead,
 And hope an empty sound;
But I cried, "Hope on, thou noble heart!
 Though thunder-bolts should fall,
And foes, like blades of grass, upstart,
 Thou shalt resist them all."

He saw no friendly hand put forth
 To help him on the way;
Men coldly talked of former worth,
 And coldly turned away;
And some there were who said that shame
 Had marked him for her own;
Few cared to recollect his name—
 He seemed almost alone;
But I cried, "Hope on, thou trembling heart!
 Thy star will yet arise,
High in the world of which thou art,
 Unto admiring eyes."

He cast from off his name the ban,
 That tortured long his soul,
He rose in all the might of man,
 And dignified the whole.
And they, who whispered once his name
 With scorn, were silent now;
More than he ever hoped to claim,
 Adorned his honored brow;
And I cried, "Well done, thou noble heart!
 Thy star ascendeth yet;
Hope on, hope on, where'er thou art,
 So that thy sun ne'er set!"