Agnes Lee
Reading edition
MOTHERHOOD
Mary, the Christ long slain, passed silently,
Following the children joyously astir
Under the cedrus and the olive-tree,
Pausing to let their laughter float to her.
Each voice an echo of a voice more dear,
She saw a little Christ in every face;
When lo, another woman, gliding near,
Yearned o’er the tender life that filled the place.
160And Mary sought the woman’s hand, and spoke:
“I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed
With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke
Who bring to thee a child beloved and lost.
“I, too, have rocked my little one.
Oh, He was fair!
Yea, fairer than the fairest sun,
And like its rays through amber spun
His sun-bright hair.
Still I can see it shine and shine.”
“Even so,” the woman said, “was mine.”
“His ways were ever darling ways”—
And Mary smiled—
“So soft, so clinging! Glad relays
Of love were all His precious days.
My little child!
My infinite star! My music fled!”
“Even so was mine,” the woman said.
Then whispered Mary: “Tell me, thou,
Of thine.” And she:
“Oh, mine was rosy as a bough
Blooming with roses, sent, somehow,
To bloom for me!
His balmy fingers left a thrill
Within my breast that warms me still.”
Then gazed she down some wilder, darker hour,
And said—when Mary questioned, knowing not:
“Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower?”—
“I am the mother of Iscariot.”
161
A STATUE IN A GARDEN
I was a goddess ere the marble found me.
Wind, wind, delay not!
Waft my spirit where the laurel crowned me!
Will the wind stay not?
Then tarry, tarry, listen, little swallow!
An old glory feeds me—
I lay upon the bosom of Apollo!
Not a bird heeds me.
For here the days are alien. Oh, to waken
Mine, mine, with calling!
But on my shoulders bare, like hopes forsaken,
The dead leaves are falling.
The sky is gray and full of unshed weeping
As dim down the garden
I wait and watch the early autumn sweeping.
The stalks fade and harden.
The souls of all the flowers afar have rallied.
The trees, gaunt, appalling,
Attest the gloom, and on my shoulders pallid
The dead leaves are falling.
ON THE JAIL STEPS
I’ve won the race.
Young man, I’m new!
Old Sallow-face
Good luck to you!
162I’ve turned about,
And paid for sin.
And you come out,
As I go in.
Ten years! but mark,
I am free, free!
Ten years of dark
Shall gather me.
My wife—long-while
She wept her pain.
She cannot smile;
She weeps again.
My little one
Shall know my call.
Child is there none
For sin grows tall.
Now who are you,
Spar of hell’s flood?
And who, and who,
But your own blood?
HER GOING
The Wife
Child, why do you linger beside her portal?
None shall hear you now if you knock or clamor.
All is dark, hidden in heaviest leafage.
None shall behold you.
Truth
Gone, gone, the dear, the beautiful lady!
I, her comrade, tarry but to lament her.
163Ah, the day of her vanishing all things lovely
Shared in her fleetness!
Tell me her going.
The Wife
You are a child. How tell you?
Truth
I am a child, yet old as the earliest sorrow.
Talk to me as you would to an old, old woman.
I own the ages.
The Wife
Voices, they say, gossipped around her dwelling.
She awoke, departing, they say, in silence.
I am glad she is gone. The old hurt fastens.
Hate is upon me.
It was hard to live down the day, and wonder,
Wonder why the tears were forever welling,
Wonder if on his lips her kiss I tasted
Turning to claim him.
Truth
Jealousy, mad, brooding blind and unfettered,
Takes its terrible leap over lie and malice.
Who shall question her now in the land of shadow?
Who shall uphold her?
The Wife
It was hard to know that peace had forsaken
All my house, to greet with a dull endeavor
Babe or book, so to forget a moment
I was forgotten.
164Truth
Who shall question her now in the land of shadow,
Question the mute pale lips, and the marble fingers,
Eyelids fallen on eyes grown dim as the autumn?
Ah, the beloved!
The Wife
Go, go, bringer of ache and discord!
Truth
Go I may not. Some, they think to inter me.
Out of the mold and clay my visible raiment
Rises forever.
The Wife
Hers the sin that lured the light from our threshold,
Hers the sin that I lost his love and grew bitter.
Truth
Lost his love? You never possessed it, woman.
The Wife
Sharp tongue, have pity!...
Yes, I knew. But I loved him, hoping for all.
I said in my heart: “Time shall bring buds to blossom.”
I almost saw the flower of the flame descending.
Then—she came toying.
He is mine, mine, by the laws of the ages!
Mine, mine, mine—yes, body and spirit!
I am glad she has gone her way to the shadow.
Hate is upon me.
Oh, the bar over which my soul would see
All that eludes my soul, while he remembers!
You, dispel if you can my avenging passion—
Clouds are before me!
165