| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | IV. The Wife | | By Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale (1788–1879) |
| | The Empire of Woman—A Series of Sonnets
THE DAUGHTER from her father’s bosom goes; | |
| The sister drops her brother’s clasping hand; | |
| For God himself ordained a holier band | |
| Than kindred blood on human minds bestows. | |
| That stronger, deeper, dearer tie she knows, | 5 |
| The heart-wed wife; as heaven by rainbow spanned, | |
| Thus bright with hope life’s path before her glows;— | |
| Proves it like mirage on the desert’s sand? | |
| Still in her soul the light divine remains; | |
| And if her husband’s strength be overborne | 10 |
| By sorrow, sickness, or the felon’s chains, | |
| Such as by England’s noblest son were worn, | |
| Unheeding how her own poor heart is torn, | |
| She, angel-like, his sinking soul sustains. | | | | |
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