Sarah Tittle Bolton (18 Dec 1814 – 05 Aug 1893 | Newport KY – Indianapolis IN) poet, author, women’s / property rights activist, aka Indiana’s Pioneer Poet.

Children of my heart and brain, born of pleasure and of pain. It was night, with storm and darkness,

a few stars dimly shining. Worshipper in heaven’s far courts! sublime gleams thy white forehead,

bound with purple air. Where a glacier weeps forever at the feet of monarch mountain in the vale.

Thou are beautiful, Lake Leman, when thy starry waves are sleeping in the fond embraces of

summer moon’s soft light. Awake to effort while the day is shining; the time to labor will not

always last. Where sunlight lends its softest summer smile, Mount Saleve lifts his scarred brow

toward heaven. The moss-grown ruin of its massive wall teaches the littleness of man’s ambition,

its ancient glory and its fall. Dissolve the Union! Let the blush of shame hide its crimson glow.

They have given the iron horse the rein; he flies away o’er sunny plain, shrieking and clanking

bolts and bars. Put by thy work — for surely the boys will be arriving home from war tonight!

Bolton, Sarah Tittle. The LIfe and Poems of Sarah T. Bolton. Indianapolis: F. L. Horton, 1880. https://archive.org/details/lifepoemsofsarah00boltrich/mode/thumb