Poems (Sharpless)/Lines Written on My Twenty-first Birthday

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LINES WRITTEN ON MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY
Entering upon the smooth and easy path Of early womanhood, I stand to-day;Before me spreads a glowing, rosy scene, Behind my cares, my lonely dreamings lay.
A fair, an easy path of love and faith, Of calm obedience and of mild content,A placid evening to so rough a morning, Smiles in Hope's promise with a glad intent.
And yet, and yet, a spirit in my breast Spurns at the ease of life, the mild control,And finds a fiercer gladness where the billows Of sterner strife and deeper conflict roll.
Mild, soft, submissive, clinging, loving ever, So should a woman be, and so am I,—When all is calm,—but when the tempests gather In all their force, they rule my angry sky.
Just twenty-one, and standing here, defiant Of laws, of rulers, and of every creed—Oh God in Heaven! whose hand, then, has planted In my young heart such sorrow-bearing seed?
I cannot tell; in prayer have I been governed By loving hands that sought my highest good;How he, the evil one beside my cradle, Implanted here this wild, this lawless mood.
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Ah! I abhor myself! I loathe my being! False, false as falsehood, save by transient spells;Driven on shoals by every gale of passion That at a word, a smile, a sneer, oft swells.
Oft-times my heart is bowed beneath its burden; I weep with bitter tears my sin, I cry—Have mercy, mercy on me, Lord, a sinner! Turn on this erring one a pitying eye.
But, ah! He heeds me not, earth clings so closely Around my spirit, He can hear me not;And so I seek to drown, in worser passion, The voice that, heard, can never be forgot.
I sin repent,—yet my repentance serves not; I feel no peace, no joy, no quiet here;Heaven is so far off, the world so kindly, I seek to lose my grief and anguish there.
And him I love—for his sake, oh my Father, Hear me this once, for his sake bring me low,That I may win him back, by coming with him Back to thy fold; teach my wild heart to bow.
Could I but wander back this rosy childhood, Thro' gates of birth, all would be well with me;But now!—oh aid thy feeble child, Great Father, To reach, by any steps, Thy Heaven and Thee.
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