And that is nature too,
Issuing a fresher law than laws of birth.

Though her love is deep and passionate and full of a woman's devotedness,
the mark of race is set deep within her soul. The moment the claim of race
is brought clearly before her as the claim of duty, as the claim of father
and of kindred, she accepts it. Her love is not thrown hastily aside, for
she loves deeply and truly, and it tears her heart in sunder to renounce
it; but she is faithful to duty. Her love grows not less, loses none of its
hold upon her heart.

No other crown
Is aught but thorns on my poor woman's brow.

Hers is not a divided self, however; to see the way of duty with her, was
to follow in it. Her father's invincible will, courage and patient purpose
are her own by inheritance. Once realizing the claim of birth and race, she
does not falter, love is resolutely put aside, all delight in culture and
refinement becomes dross in her eyes.

I will not count
On aught but being faithful. I will take
This yearning self of mine and strangle it.
I will not be half-hearted: never yet
Fedalma did aught with a wavering soul.
Die, my young joy--die, all my hungry hopes!
The milk you cry for from the breast of life
Is thick with curses. O, all fatness here
Snatches its meat from leanness--feeds on graves.
I will seek nothing but to shun base joy.
The saints were cowards who stood by to see
Christ crucified: they should have flung themselves
Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain--
The grandest death, to die in vain--for love
Greater than sways the forces of the world!
That death shall be my bridegroom. I will wed
The curse that blights my people. Father, come!

The poem distinctly teaches that Fedalma was strong, because the ties of
blood were strongly marked upon her mind and willingly accepted by her
intellect and conscience; while Don Silva was weak, because he did not
acknowledge those ties and accept their law. In the end, however, both
declare that the inherited life is the only one which gives joy or duty,
and that all individual aims and wishes are to be renounced. The closing
scene of this great poem is full of sadness, and yet is strong with moral
purpose. Don Silva and Fedalma meet for the last time, she on her way to
Africa with her tribe to find a home for it there, he on his way to Rome,
to seek the privilege of again using his knightly sw