| |
| HOW narrow seems the round of ladies’ lives | |
| And ladies’ duties in their smiling world, | |
| The day this Titan woman, gray with years, | |
| Goes out across the void to prove her soul! | |
| Brief are the pains of motherhood that end | 5 |
| In motherhood’s long joy; but she has borne | |
| The age-long travail of a cause that lies | |
| Still-born at last on History’s cold lap. | |
| And yet she rests not; yet she will not drink | |
| The cup of peace held to her parching lips | 10 |
| By smug Dishonor’s hand. Nay, forth she fares, | |
| Old and alone, on exile’s rocky road— | |
| That well-worn road with snows incarnadined | |
| By blood-drops from her feet long years agone. | |
| |
| Mother of power, my soul goes out to you | 15 |
| As a strong swimmer goes to meet the sea | |
| Upon whose vastness he is like a leaf. | |
| What are the ends and purposes of song, | |
| Save as a bugle at the lips of Life | |
| To sound reveille to a drowsing world | 20 |
| When some great deed is rising like the sun? | |
| Where are those others whom your deeds inspired | |
| To deeds and words that were themselves a deed? | |
| Those who believe in death have gone with death | |
| To the gray crags of immortality; | 25 |
| Those who believed in life have gone with life | |
| To the red halls of spiritual death. | |
| |
| And you? But what is death or life to you? | |
| Only a weapon in the hand of faith | |
| To cleave a way for beings yet unborn | 30 |
| To a far freedom you will never share! | |
| Freedom of body is an empty shell | |
| Wherein men crawl whose souls are held with gyves; | |
| For Freedom is a spirit, and she dwells | |
| As often in a jail as on the hills. | 35 |
| In all the world this day there is no soul | |
| Freer than you, Breshkovsky, as you stand | |
| Facing the future in your narrow cell. | |
| For you are free of self and free of fear, | |
| Those twin-born shades that lie in wait for man | 40 |
| When he steps out upon the wind-blown road | |
| That leads to human greatness and to pain. | |
| Take in your hand once more the pilgrim’s staff— | |
| Your delicate hand misshapen from the nights | |
| In Kara’s mines; bind on your unbent back | 45 |
| That long has borne the burdens of the race, | |
| The exile’s bundle, and upon your feet | |
| Strap the worn sandals of a tireless faith. | |
| |
| You are too great for pity. After you | |
| We send not sobs, but songs; and all our days | 50 |
| We shall walk bravelier knowing where you are. | |
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