This poem was published in her daughters’ biography, Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), which earned Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott the Pulitzer Prize in 1917.
Women who weave in hope the daily web,
Who leave the deadly depths of passion pure,
Who hold the stormy powers of will attent,
As Heaven directs, to act, or to endure;
No multitude strews branches in their way,
Not in their praise the loud arena strives;
Still as a flameless incense rises up
The costly patience of their offered lives.
