or my kin.

Did I shame them that rejoicing in the freedom of my spirit
I asserted all its fulness, spite of prejudice and pride;
Whilst they, slaves of wealth and fashion, trembling cowards did not
dare it,
Would not risk a pointed finger e'en to gain an angel bride.

Was the noble name they cited but the badge of slaves and vassals,
Bound beyond emancipation to obey another's mood?
Better far to be a peasant 'neath the shadow of their castles,
Than debase the soul within me to such brutish servitude.

What were they with all their lordship, all their riches,
measured duly,
That they looked with scorn upon her in her unadorned worth?
Ashy fruit with surface golden, she with goodness leavened
throughly,
All her wealth by heaven imparted, their's derived alone from
Earth.

Oh! I felt a high compassion for their warp'd and narrow feelings
As I press'd my bride unto me, and read o'er her gentle eyes,
Gaining deeper insight daily, meeting ever new revealings
Of the grace of woman's spirit, and her holy sympathies.

So we pilgrim'd on together, buffeting the ills about us,
Sharing hope, and joy, and sorrow, as we shared our daily bread,
Keeping still a pleasaunce scathless in our hearts, though all
without us
Might be cheerless desolation, and the sky with clouds o'erspread.

Through much toil and tribulation, we attain'd at last to honour
With no succour from my kindred, I upreared my house alone,
And I see my cherish'd maiden, with admiring gazes on her,
Glide amid the high and noble with a grace beyond their own.

And those proud ones now are gracious, bowing fawningly before her,
Whilst she with her true eyes calmly takes the measure of their
hearts,
Weighs aright the honied speeches, and the praise they heap upon
her,
Her own innocence instinctively disarming all their arts.

For she knows their tongues are venal, sold to flatter wealth and
power,
And to crouch with serpent homage in the dust at Fortune's shrine,
Ready to revile and slander if calamity should lower,
And to flout as base, deceitful, what they late had termed divine.

Thus unmask'd and sifted throughly let them stoop and fawn at
pleasure,
Little reck I to revenge me better for their former spite
As I mark their degradation falling on them in full measure
When they humble themselv