him blot my name from honour's scroll:
The sun will shine forth when the cloud departs.

Patience, my heart! Error is quick, but Truth
Moves slowly, but moves surely up the earth,
Wiping from age the heresies of youth,
And kindling warmth on the once blasted hearth:
Patience, my heart! and rage will turn to ruth.

There is no blush upon my brow, though tears
Are in mine eyes, and sorrow in my heart;
This sobbing breast heaves not with traitor fears:
No sighs for sin are these that sadly start,
And bear their bitter burden to thine ears.

And though my woman's strength bend like a reed
Before the flowing of Affliction's river,
Not, not for shame, nor for one strumpet deed
Doth this weak frame bow down, or faintly quiver,
As I stand forth alone in deadly need.

No! before thee, Filippo, and the world,
Cased in its petty panoply of scorn,
With myriad slavish lips in mocking curl'd,
Spotless and innocent, though most forlorn,
Here stand I, 'gainst the shafts Falsehood hath hurl'd.

2.

Confess'd! Confess'd the guilty act! What act?
What act, my Lord, that cometh home to me
Closer than each hot word, by torment rack'd,
Flies at the bidding of false tyranny,
That makes at will the pain-wrung falsehood fact?

There are full many sins confess'd, my Lord,
In pain of body and in pain of soul;
Some from the heart unearth'd by fire and sword,
And stealing forth amid the spirit's dole,
With fiery pain-sweat seething every word;

But none, my Lord, that riseth to the sky,
Bears guilt of mine upon its blister'd tongue;
Though torture's fire is quick to forge a lie,
None from these woman's lips could ere be wrung;
No! none, though on the rack-bed bound to die.

Poor youth! This poison from his writhing throat,
Those hellish instruments have haply drawn,
And pain hath conn'd the aspish lies by rote;
But to my heart no poison'd tooth hath gnawn,
For in its pulses lies Truth's antidote.

These limbs, my Lord, can do their task no more;
The rack hath crush'd them in its wild embrace,
So that Truth's firm-set attitude is o'er,
Else had I met my judges face to face,
And challenged justice, as in days of yore.

Yet is the spirit strong within me still,
And bears me up though manhood's strength succumb,
Unbent by any blighting blast of ill,
Through fiery trials, to all false witness dumb;
They cannot stain me, though perchance they kill!

I am a woman--we