Page:Poems by Frances Fuller Victor.djvu/51

 "And so," I said, "they joined a train

Of Indian traders and their wives?

I own it draws me like a chain,

The romance of these barbarous lives.

I think I should have done as they,

And gone out to the mighty West.

But with the motive? Who shall say?

We each pursue our special quest:

Perchance I am not of the stuff

Men take for stormsails." "'Tis enough

That they were," sighed she. "Yes, like you,

They counted life naught, duty all;

But zeal may be mistaken, too.

Did they not follow at the call

Of wife-love, more than God-love strong

In most of us?" She spake: "No tongue

Could have convinced them they were wrong,

Though it with prophecies had rung

Eloquent as Isaiah s page:

No; for they felt a holy rage,

"Such as the prophets might have known,

To conquer by their Christian faith,

And by the sword of Christ alone

To win their way, for life or death.

The voice that called on them to go 45