Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Charwomen

Philip Becker Goetz

THEY might be the grim Parcae of old Greece,

The three worn women whom I oft behold

Pass my warm window in the biting cold

Across the square decent with falling fleece.

Sometimes, as now, when the arc-lights increase,

The wrinkled faces suddenly unfold

A revelation those taut lips withold

From utterance. O Time, wilt thou ne’er cease

To chisel thus thy bitter, cruel sway

Upon the yielding masks of these thy slaves?

How better far they never saw the sun,

But in Pentelic womb all dreaming lay,

Safe from thy wasteful, groping hand that graves

A million souls to shape one Parthenon!