not convention's slave!
If 'obedience is for woman,' still she has a soul to save.

Must I share their haughty falsehood, take my part in social guile,
Cut my dearest friends, and stab them with a false, deceitful smile?

Creeping like a serpent through me, faint, I feel a deadly chill,
Freezing all the good within me, icy fetters chain my will.

Do I grow like those around me? will I learn to bear my part
In this glittering world of fashion, taming down a woman's heart?

Must I lower to my husband? is it duty to abate
All the higher instincts in me, till I grow his fitting mate?

Shall I muse on noble pictures, turn the poet's stirring page,
And grow base and mean in action, petty with a petty age?

I am heart-sick, weary, weary! tell me not that this life,
Where all that's truly living must be pruned by fashion's knife!--

I can make my own existence--spurn his gifts, and use my hands,
Though the senseless world of fashion for the deed my memory brands.

Quick! unbraid the heavy tresses of my coroneted hair--
Let its gold fall in _free_ ringlets such as I was wont to wear.

I am going back to nature. I no more will school my heart
To stifle its best feelings, play an idle puppet's part.

I will seek my banished mother, nestle closely on her breast;
Noble, faithful, kind, and loving, there the tortured one may rest.

We will turn the Poets' pages, learn the noblest deeds to act,
Till the fictions in their beauty shall be lived as simple fact.

I will mould a living statue, make it generous, strong, and high,
Humble, meek, self-abnegating, formed to meet the Master's eye.

Oh, the glow of earnest culture! Oh, the joy of sacrifice!
The delight to help another! o'er all selfish thoughts to rise!

Farewell, cold and haughty splendor--how you chilled me when a bride!
Hollow all your mental efforts; meanness all your dazzling pride!

Put the diamonds in their caskets! pearls and rubies, place them there!
I shall never sigh to wear them with the violets in my hair.

Freedom! with no eye upon me freezing all my fiery soul;
Free to follow nature's dictates; free from all save God's control.

I am going to the cottage, with its windows small and low,
Where the sweetbrier twines its roses and the Guelder rose its snow.

I will climb the thymy mountains where the pines in sturdy might
Follow nature's holy bidding, growing ever to the light