Margaret Fuller, Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli
W. H. Channing, Ed.

[1389]

Hush! gentle voices to my soul are calling,
     And, whispering, they tell—
‘The Ocean is the Lord's; it doth His bidding.
     Repine not; all is well.’
Beyond the confines of terrestrial regions

There is a better shore;
     God's love unfathomed, as the only sea,
Flows round it evermore.

There parted friends shall meet, and Death's dark wing—
     Like sea-birds, screaming shrill—
Shall never flap above the drowning forms
     Of friends beloved still.

God speed the dawning of that glorious day,
     When, sin-freed, we shall be
Where tears are wiped from every grief-dimmed eye,
     And where is no more sea.

Margaret Fuller Ossoli.

Friend of humanity! whose warm, true heart
     Throbbed ever to redeem a fallen race,—
Alas! that thou from earthly scenes shouldst part,
     Ere thou hadst reached in joy thy native place.

Thy noble husband, too, whose manly soul
     Longed for fair Freedom in his native land,—
Alas! that ocean's waves o'er him should roll,
     Ere he could view, in peace, Columbia's strand.

And that sweet ‘bud of promise,’ whose fair bloom,
     Evoked from out thy paradise of love,
Once made so fragrant thine Italian home,
     He, too, went with thee to the land above.

An undivided circle! nevermore
     Will tears of sad farewell your cheeks bedew;
For on that other, that celestial shore,
     Our God unites for aye pure hearts and true.

Margaret! thy name hath long been to my soul
     A talisman of influence pure and strong;
Though born a woman, born to have control
     O'er human hearts for virtue far and long.