No other crown
  Is aught but thorns on my poor woman’s brow.

Hers is not a divided self, however; to see the way of duty with her, was to follow in it.  Her father’s invincible will, courage and patient purpose are her own by inheritance.  Once realizing the claim of birth and race, she does not falter, love is resolutely put aside, all delight in culture and refinement becomes dross in her eyes.

                       I will not count

On aught but being faithful.  I will take
This yearning self of mine and strangle it. 
I will not be half-hearted:  never yet
Fedalma did aught with a wavering soul. 
Die, my young joy—­die, all my hungry hopes! 
The milk you cry for from the breast of life
Is thick with curses.  O, all fatness here
Snatches its meat from leanness—­feeds on graves. 
I will seek nothing but to shun base joy. 
The saints were cowards who stood by to see
Christ crucified:  they should have flung themselves
Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain—­
The grandest death, to die in vain—­for love
Greater than sways the forces of the world! 
That death shall be my bridegroom.  I will wed
The curse that blights my people.  Father, come!

The poem distinctly teaches that Fedalma was strong, because the ties of blood were strongly marked upon her mind and willingly accepted by her intellect and conscience; while Don Silva was weak, because he did not acknowledge those ties and accept their law.  In the end, however, both declare that the inherited life is the only one which gives joy or duty, and that all individual aims and wishes are to be renounced.  The closing scene of this great poem is full of sadness, and yet is strong with moral purpose.  Don Silva and Fedalma meet for the last time, she on her way to Africa with her tribe to find a home for it there, he on his way to Rome, to seek the privilege of again using his knightly sword.  Both are sad, both feel that life has lost all its joy, both believe it is a bitter destiny which divides them from the fulfilment of their love, and yet both are convinced that love must be forsworn for a higher duty.  Their last conversation, opened by Don Silva, is full of power, and concentrates into its last words the total meaning of the poem.

I bring no puling prayer, Fedalma—­ask
No balm of pardon that may soothe my soul
For others’ bleeding wounds:  I am not come
To say, “Forgive me:”  you must not forgive,
For you must see me ever as I am—­
Your father’s...

FEDALMA.

               Speak it not!  Calamity

Comes like a deluge and o’erfloods our crimes,
Till sin is hidden in woe.  You—­I—­we two,
Grasping we knew not what, that seemed delight,
Opened the sluices of that deep.

DON SILVA.

We two?—­
Fedalma, you were blameless, helpless.