Establishment of a Female College in New-Grenada, South America

Ye have done well, my brethren. Thus to castThe balm of healing at the fountain's headWas wisely done. For on the thousand streamsThat murmur freshly round your hallowed homesIts blessedness shall flow. Well have ye scannedWith philosophic eye, their latent worth,Who in the weakness of a tender frame,And shrinking consciousness of ill, might seemOf utile import. Yet those fragile forms,Now trembling in their beauty and their fear,Shall kindle with new energies: high hopeAnd martyr-like endurance, and deep strengthTo toil untired, to suffer and be still,And all those deathless sympathies that springUp from a mother's love. These shall be theirs;And what you trust to them of mental wealth,Knowledge, or virtue, or the truth of God,Shall blossom round the cradle of your sons,And bear rich harvest in your country's fame.Realms there have been, which, like your own did rendA despot's shackles from their giant-breast,And rush to freedom. But the baneful breathOf ignorance, or luxury, or sin,Swept o'er them as a siroch, and they sankAmid the waste of ages. They, perchance,Did look on woman as a worthless thing,A cloistered gem, a briefly-fading flower,Remembering not that she had kingly power

O'er the young soul. They deemed not that those lines,Graved so indelibly, that all the stormsAnd water-floods of Time erase them not,Which even stern Death peruses when he sealsThe scroll of life up for the judgment-bar,Were from a mother's pencil.Ye have judged,That 'mid a nation's elements, her handMight cast a healthful leaven, and her lip,Even from the mouldering pillow of the grave,Reach with its dove-like, heaven-taught eloquence,A race unborn. According to your faithBe your reward. And may the glorious voiceOf liberty, from Andes' cloud-wreathed crown,Through every region whence your rivers hoardTheir ocean tribute, go with godlike strength,Wakening new nations to Jehovah's praise.