Poem by Julia Ward Howe

To Florence Nightingale

I am not cold, my sister, in applause
Of one whose presence honors Queenly guests;
Who wears the noblest jewel of her time,
And leaves her race a nobler, in her name.
I do not swell thy triumphs with a wreath,
Because thy weight of crowns is burthensome;
And that which henceforth least can be thy need
Is human praise, the cordial of weak hearts.
But, lest my silence should dispraise myself,
I'll help its meaning with a parable.

A scene is present to my mind, intense
With all the joys the lyric drama gives;
Its heroine, fainting 'neath her fragrant spoils,
Deafened with plaudits, vexed to answer them,
Since none approach the conscious gift of Art
From whence these splendors, like a fountain, flowed,
Implores the moment to forsake the stage
Whose right is what she pictures, not herself.

But lo! where one of tardier impulse sits
With other blossoms that are hers, by right.
And waits a vacant moment for his gift.
She is adorned beyond her youth's desire,
No place about her for a leaflet more;
So, with a sudden thought, he flings the prize
To scatter, where the patient chorus stand,
A willing back-ground to her high relief.

Strange joy and wonder seize those weary hearts
That do their heavy work unrecognized.
"What, not illustrious, did you think of us,
Mere stony echoes of your nightingale,
And Genius, that doth call us for her use?
You knew us faithful in the prayer, the march,
The funeral dirge, and crowned us? God reward!'

Methinks, a Prima Donna of your mind,
However earnest for her due repose,
Would turn the eyes that con to-morrow's task
Beyond this evening's laurels, bright'ning, back,
And send this Praiser happy to his home
With one approving look, whose warmth should say:
The flowers thus sent, fell nearest to my heart."

1. My Last Dance
2. Tribute to Oliver Wendell Holmes
3. Mother's Day Proclamation
4. The Flag
5. As It Seems

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