MERCÉDÈS

by: Julia Caroline Ripley Dorr (1825-1913)

      FAIR young queen, who liest dead to-day
      In thy proud palace o’er the moaning sea,
      With still, white hands that never more may be
      Lifted to pluck life’s roses bright with May--
      Little is it to you that, far away,
      Where skies you knew not bend above the free,
      Hearts touched with tender pity turn to thee,
      And for thy sake a shadow dims the day!
      But youth and love and womanhood are one,
      Though across sundering seas their signals fly;
      Young Love’s pure kiss, the joy but just begun,
      The hope of motherhood, thy people’s cry--
      O thou fair child! was it not hard to die
      And leave so much beneath the summer sun?

"Mercedes" is reprinted from Scribner's Monthly (Vol. 16, issue 5), September, 1878.

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