Aye! we are glad of many things;
God strung our hearts with such fine strings
The least breath moves them, and we hear
Music where silence greets your ear.
We suffer so? But women's souls,
Like violet-powder dropped on coals,
Give forth their best in anguish. Oh
The subtle secrets that we know
Of joy in sorrow, strange delights
Of ecstasy in pain-filled nights,
And mysteries of gain in loss
Known but to Christ upon the cross!
Our tears are pitiful to you?
Look how the heaven-reflecting dew
Dissolves its life in tears. The sand
Meanwhile lies hard upon the strand.
How could your pity find a place
For us, the mothers of the race?
Men may be fathers unaware,
So poor the title is you wear.
But mothers--who that crown adorns
Knows all its mingled blooms and thorns,
And she whose feet that pain hath trod
Hath walked upon the heights with God.
No, offer us not pity's cup.
There is no looking down or up
Between us; eye looks straight in eye:
Born equals, so we live and die.
A WOMAN'S ANSWER
You call me an angel of love and of light,
A being of goodness and heavenly fire,
Sent out from God's kingdom to guide you aright,
In paths where your spirit may mount and aspire,
You say that I glow like a star on its course,
Like a ray from the altar, a spark from the source.
Now list to my answer--let all the world hear it,
I speak unafraid what I know to be true -
A pure, faithful love is the creative spirit
Which make women angels! I live but in you.
Pages:
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73