Margaret Widdemer
Reading edition
THE BEGGARS
The little pitiful, worn, laughing faces,
Begging of Life for Joy!
I saw the little daughters of the poor,
Tense from the long day’s working, strident, gay,
Hurrying to the picture-place. There curled
A hideous flushed beggar at the door,
Trading upon his horror, eyeless, maimed,
Complacent in his profitable mask.
They mocked his horror, but they gave to him
From the brief wealth of pay-night, and went in
To the cheap laughter and the tawdry thoughts
Thrown on the screen; in to the seeking hand
Covered by darkness, to the luring voice
Of Horror, boy-masked, whispering of rings,
Of silks, of feathers, bought—so cheap!—with just
Their slender starved child-bodies, palpitant
For beauty, laughter, passion—that is life:
(A frock of satin for an hour’s shame,
A coat of fur for two days’ servitude;
“And the clothes last,” the thought runs on, within
The poor warped girl-minds drugged with changeless days;
“Who cares or knows after the hour is done?”)
—Poor little beggars at Life’s door for Joy!
The old man crouched there, eyeless, horrible,
Complacent in the marketable mask
That earned his comforts—and they gave to him!
But ah, the little painted, wistful faces
Questioning Life for Joy!
362
TERESINA’S FACE
He saw it last of all before they herded in the steerage,
Dark against the sunset where he lingered by the hold,
The tear-stained dusk-rose face of her, the little Teresina,
Sailing out to lands of gold:
Ah, the days were long, long days, still toiling in the vineyard,
Working for the coins that set him free to go to her,
Where gay it glowed, the flower face of little Teresina,
Where the joy and riches were:
Hard to find one rose-face where the dark rose-faces cluster,
Where the outland laws are strange and outland voices hum,
(Only one lad’s hoping, and the word of Teresina,
Who would wait for him to come!)
· · · · ·
God grant he may not find her, since he might not win her freedom,
Nor yet be great enough to love, in such marred, captive wise,
The patient, painted face of her, the little Teresina,
With its cowed, all-knowing eyes!
GREEK FOLK SONG
Under dusky laurel leaf,
Scarlet leaf of rose,
I lie prone, who have known
All a woman knows.
Love and grief and motherhood,
Fame and mirth and scorn—
These are all shall befall
Any woman born.
363Jewel-laden are my hands,
Tall my stone above—
Do not weep that I sleep,
Who was wise in love.
Where I walk, a shadow gray
Through gray asphodel,
I am glad, who have had
All that life can tell.