Explore "The Ermine" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I read of the ermine to-day, / Of the ermine who will not step / By the feint of a step in the mire, -- / The creature who will not stain / Her garment of wild, white fire;
Of the dumb, flying, soulless thing / (So we with our souls dare to say), / The being of sense and of sod, / That will not, that will not defile / The nature she took from her God.
And we, with the souls that we have, / Go cheering the hunters on / To a prey with that pleading eye. / She cannot go into the mud! / She can stay like the snow, and die!
The hunters come leaping on. / She turns like a heart at bay. / They do with her as they will. / . O thou who thinkest on this! / Stand like a star, and be still,
Where the soil oozes under thy feet. / Better, ah, better to die / Than to take one step in the mire! / Oh, blessed to die or to live, / With garments of holy fire!