A Tribute by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward — Read

Blinded I groped -- you gave me sight. / Perplexed I turned -- you sent me light. / You speak unto a thousand ears: / I pay you tribute in hid tears. / I pay you homage in the hopes / That rise to scale life's scathed slopes. / I give you gratitude in this: / That, midway on the precipice / You never trod and never saw, / Where air you never drank, strikes raw / And wan upon the wasted breath, / And gulfs you never passed, gape death, / And crags you gained some sunlit way / Frown threatening over me to-day, -- / That here with bruised hand I cling, / Because I heard you yonder sing / With those who conquer. If through joy, / Then deeper be our shame who toy / And loiter in the scourging rain, / And did not pass by strength of pain. / Laggard below, I reach to bless / You who are King of happiness; / You are the victor, you the brave, / Who could not stoop to be _her_ slave. / Downward to me, rebuking, fling / My privilege of suffering. / I take and listen. Teach me. See! / Nearer than you, I ought to be; / Nearer the height man never trod, / Nearer the veiled face of God. / I ought, and am not. Comrade! be / Unconscious captain unto me. / Unknowing, beckon and command: / I answer you with unseen hand. / You read in vain these lines between, / And smiling, wonder whom I mean.