A Protest

Light words they were, and lightly, falsely said:     She heard them, and she started, and she rose,     As in the act to speak; the sudden thought     And unconsidered impulse led her on.     In act to speak she rose, but with the sense     Of all the eyes of that mixed company     Now suddenly turned upon her, some with age     Hardened and dulled, some cold and critical;     Some in whom vapours of their own conceit,     As moist malarious mists the heavenly stars,     Still blotted out their good, the best at best     By frivolous laugh and prate conventional     All too untuned for all she thought to say     With such a thought the mantling blood to her cheek     Flushed-up, and oer-flushed itself, blank night her soul     Made dark, and in her all her purpose swooned.     She stood as if for sinking. Yet anon     With recollections clear, august, sublime,     Of Gods great truth, and right immutable,     Which, as obedient vassals, to her mind     Came summoned of her will, in self-negation     Quelling her troublous earthy consciousness,     She queened it oer her weakness. At the spell     Back rolled the ruddy tide, and leaves her cheek     Paler than erst, and yet not ebbs so far     But that one pulse of one indignant thought     Might hurry it hither in flood. So as she stood     She spoke. God in her spoke and made her heard.