Explore "Her Jury" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A lily rooted in a sacred soil, / Arrayed with those who neither spin nor toil; / Dinah, the preacher, through the purple air, / Forever in her gentle evening prayer / Shall plead for Her -- what ear too deaf to hear? -- / "As if she spoke to some one very near."
And he of storied Florence, whose great heart / Broke for its human error; wrapped apart, / And scorching in the swift, prophetic flame / Of passion for late holiness; and shame / Than untried glory grander, gladder, higher -- / Deathless, for Her, he "testifies by fire."
A statue fair and firm on shining feet, / Womanhood's woman, Dorothea, sweet / As strength, and strong as tenderness, to make / A "struggle with the dark" for white light's sake, / Immortal stands, unanswered speaks. Shall they, / Of Her great hand the moulded, breathing clay, / Her fit, select, and proud survivors be? / Possess the life eternal, and not _She_?