Chapter I: HAD been almost happy for an hour,

Lost to the world that knew me in the park
Among strange faces; while my little girl
Leaped with the squirrels, chirruped with the birds
And with the sunlight glowed. She was so dear,
So beautiful, so sweet; and for the time
The rose of love, shorn of its thorn of shame,
Bloomed in my heart. Then suddenly you passed.
I sat alone upon the public bench;
You, with your lawful husband, rode in state;
And when your eyes fell on me and my child,
They were not eyes, but daggers, poison tipped.

God! how good women slaughter with a look!
And, like cold steel, your glance cut through my heart,
Struck every petal from the rose of love
And left the ragged stalk alive with thorns.

My little one came running to my side
And called me Mother. It was like a blow
Between the eyes; and made me sick with pain.
And then it seemed as if each bird and breeze
Took up the word, and changed its syllables
From Mother into Magdalene; and cried
My shame to all the world.

It was your eyes
Which did all this. But listen now to me
(Not you alone, but all the barren wives
Who, like you, flaunt their virtue in the face
Of fallen women): I do chance to know
The crimes you think are hidden from all men
(Save one who took your gold and sold his skill
And jeopardized his name for your base ends).

I know how you have sunk your soul in sense
Like any wanton; and refused to bear
The harvest of your pleasure-planted seed;
I know how you have crushed the tender bud
Which held a soul; how you have blighted it;
And made the holy miracle of birth
A wicked travesty of God’s design;
Yea, many buds, which might be blossoms now
And beautify your selfish, arid life,
Have been destroyed, because you chose to keep
The aimless freedom, and the purposeless,
Self-seeking liberty of childless wives.

I was an untaught girl. By nature led,
By love and passion blinded, I became
An unwed mother. You, an honoured wife,
Refuse the crown of motherhood, defy
The laws of nature, and fling baby souls
Back in the face of God. And yet you dare
Call me a sinner, and yourself a saint;
And all the world smiles on you, and its doors
Swing wide at your approach.
I stand outside.

Surely there must be higher courts than earth,
Where you and I will some day meet and be
Weighed by a larger justice.

FATHER AND SON

MY grand-dame, vigorous at eighty-one,
Delights in talking of her only son,
My gallant father, long since dead and gone.
‘Ah, but he was the lad!’
She says, and sighs, and looks at me askance.
How well I read the meaning of that glance—
‘Poor son of such a dad;
Poor weakling, dull and sad.’
I could, but would not tell her bitter truth
About my father’s youth.

She says: ‘Your father laughed his way through earth:
He laughed right in the doctor’s face at birth,
Such joy of life he had, such founts of mirth.
Ah, what a lad was he!’
And then she sighs. I feel her silent blame,
Because I brought her nothing but his name.
Because she does not see
Her worshipped son in me.
I could, but would not, speak in my defence,
Anent the difference.

She says: ‘He won all prizes in his time:
He overworked, and died before his prime.
At high ambition’s door I lay the crime.
Ah, what a lad he was!’
Well, let her rest in that deceiving thought,
Of what avail to say, ‘His death was brought
By broken sexual laws,
The ancient sinful cause.’
I could, but would not, tell the good old dame
The story of his shame.

I could say: ‘I am crippled, weak, and pale,
Because my father was an unleashed male.
Because he ran so fast, I halt and fail
(Ah, yes, he was the lad),
Because he drained each cup of sense-delight
I must go thirsting, thirsting, day and night.
Because he was joy-mad,
I must be always sad.

Because he learned no law of self-control,
I am a blighted soul.’
Of what avail to speak and spoil her joy.
Better to see her disapproving eyes,
And silent, hear her say, between her sighs,
‘Ah, but he was the boy!’

HUSKS

SHE looked at her neighbour’s house in the light of the waning day—
A shower of rice on the steps, and the shreds of a bride’s bouquet.
And then she drew the shade, to shut out the growing gloom,
But she shut it into her heart instead. (Was that a voice in the
room?)

‘My neighbour is sad,’ she sighed, ‘like the mother bird who sees
The last of her brood fly out of the nest to make its home in the
trees’—
And then in a passion of tears—‘But, oh, to be sad like her:
Sad for a joy that has come and gone!’ (Did some one speak, or stir?)

She looked at her faded hands, all burdened with costly rings;
She looked on her widowed home, all burdened with priceless things.
She thought of the dead years gone, of the empty years ahead—
(Yes, something stirred and something spake, and this was what it
said:)

‘_The voice of the Might Have Been speaks here through the lonely
dusk_;
_Life offered the fruits of love_; _you gathered only the husk_.
_There are jewels ablaze on your breast where never a child has
slept_.’
She covered her face with her ringed old hands, and wept and wept and
wept.

MEDITATIONS

HIS