Maternity
- Proud?
- Perhaps— and yet
- I cannot say with surety
- That I am happy thus to be
- Responsible for this young life’s embarking.
- Is he not thrall to prevalent conditions?
- Does not the day loom dark apace
- To weave its cordon of disgrace
- Around his lifted throat?
- Is not this mezzotint enough and surfeit
- For such prescience?
- Ah, did I dare
- Recall the pulsing life I gave,
And fold him in the kindly grave !
- Proud?
- Perhaps — could I but ever so faintly scan
- The broad horizon of a man
- Swept fair for his dominion —
- So hesitant and half-afraid
- I view this babe of sorrow!