LITTLE DAUGHTERS

What is sweeter, sweet, than you?

Not the fairy dew

Of these bee-sipped pastures where

Time, unsandalled, unaware,

Rests him ere he tire.

Shall I his forgotten hour

Strike for thee?

Fatefully,

Lift the wand that wakes

Woman in the flower?

Then o'er dream's horizon breaks

Rose of other fire;

From a world more sweet

Rival rise the fragrant floods;

Breath that makes

Thy morning meadows dun,

Mutes their dew-bells, misty hoods

Every leaf that shone;

Sets thy daisy-fondled feet

Twinkling to be gone;

Down the ways and up the ways,

Hope-fleet, trampling care

As curling buds,

Iris goal joy-near;

Then a-creep on praying knees,

Frail shoulders bent to bear

Heaven's falling sphere.

Ah, not yet, heart's wonder!

A little hour we'll stay,

And thou wilt give me grace of dawn

For travelled, dusk array.

This gown of mottled years,

By noon and gnome-light spun,

Enchant me to surrender

To Ariel ministers;

Here poised with thee before

Thy summer world's wide door,

And glory that is hers;

This soft, unclamorous sky

That makes a lotus ship of every eye

Upventuring; song's sail that pilotless

Drifts down, a wing's caress

On billowed field and climbing shore

Whose veiny tidelets beat and cling,

Bloom-labouring,

Invincibly sweet and far,

Up looming cone and scaur,

And clambering spill

To lap of ledge and aproned hill

The heaped and whispering greenery

Of beauty's burden that unburdens me!

And thou, the fairest thing

In this fair shaman-ring,

Shall my sore magic loose thee wandering?

Has Life such faltering need,

Mid outlands where she runs,

She cannot reach the suns

Save thou dost bleed?

Shall she go fleet,

With heart of stouter cheer,

Because thou givest her

Thy little, bruisèd feet?

Thou'dst earn thy Heaven? Dear, I know

Heaven must not ban thee shining so!

Why shouldst thou laden bow,

And climb, and slip, and toil,

And blanch thy cheek to keep thy soul as white,

Inviolate as now?

O, we have dreams we shall not put away

Till earth be fair as they;

When all this work-night coil

Shall be unwound by wizard fingers bright

That send our own to play;

And wisdom, wiser than we know, shall find

The birth trail to the mind;

Nor spirit waver, panting here and yon

Seeking sun-vantage, for all heights are won.

Shall not we then be as the flowers,

Drinking dew dowers

As now thou dost?

Glad petals that unclose

About Life's heart,— at last the perfect Rose?

Sweet, I will trust

Love and the morn;

Fold here the wakeful wand,

Leave thee in dewy bond

Of blossomy sleep.

Who knows but thou hast won the steep

By silent, angel way,

Hidden and heavenly,

That leaves no trace of thorn?

Star-flower, keep thy sky;

If man must climb, let him go up to thee;

A daisy may be nearer God than he —

Than I.

What crime was hers, that she lies hushed,

Dead with the price, while you and I,

With lifted head, walk sinless by?

Pause then,— but spare

That easy tear; the tale I'll bare.

Mid stones that pushed

Her eager life back, grudged her room

For root without one bloom,

There strangely blushed

Some little dreams,— not gloriously fine

As yours and mine,

But vague, and veiled, and few;

She hardly knew their names, but felt the stir

That filled her heart with whispers as they grew,

And knew that life lay in them, life for her.

When Hunger came she turned her breast

And let him feed. Cold followed, gripped

Her veins and sipped

The thin blood thinner; both she pressed

As close as lovers, lest

A darker fiend might creep within

Her empty arms; lest she might buy,

With one swift hour of sin,

A poisoned ease from tooth of need,—

A little food, a little fire, and die;

And she had dreams to shelter, little dreams to feed.

Oh, unresisting dumb!

In wide earth's harvest-gold

She asked no share,

If in the dust a crumb

Might be for her;

If she might round her aching body fold

One hour's undriven sleep,—

But one hour more,

Safe from the Want that pried

Her thin and shaken door,—

That hour the shivering dawn denied

With scream that cut life through,

And made her wretched pillow seem a rose

Her clinging cheek would keep

In soft, ungoaded death! And ah, suppose

A few more pence the day

Were richly hers, to make youth gay

With ribbon or a flower ere it flew!

( So soon toil's wrinkles come! )

Then would she make her dreams a fairer home;

Then would her heart be stronger where they grew;

Then would she walk more bravely knowing them;

Then would her eyes be brighter showing them.

Yet did they whisper, yet they stirred

Uptremblingly, till half their breath

Was music, half was song;

Told of free hours and a wild heath

Where wind and sun ran dappling; of a bird

Bough-throned, whose trill

Turned all the forest leaves to wings,—

His singing young;

Of a moon-goldened hill

Where blossoms danced; of sweeter, holier things;

A sea-beach grey,

Where waves were drownèd twilight, and the day

Hung in a pause that softly, suddenwise,

Became a soul. She too would have a soul,

And hours with God and friends; no more give all,

Now there were dreams, to the machine.

Then rose with young, star-driven eyes

To face the lords of gain,

And here she lies.

Lift up the cotton, thinned with wear,

That hides the poor, starved shoulder; bare

The bruise shows, like a printed paw.

Haste, draw the dumb, frayed sheet again,

And think you cover so the stain

Upon our hearts; for — have the truth!—

‘ Twas we who put the club of law

Into bought hands to strike her battling youth.

She kept her virtue's gold,

Fought hunger, fiend, and cold

Unvanquished; when the might of Hell

Rose in law's name and ours, she broken fell.

O friend, when next you smooth the golden head

Like nestled morning‘ gainst your knee,

Look farther,— see

Fair girlhood dead.

These lips, unvisited by love, were sweet

As are thy fondling's; this want-hollowed cheek

A little ease had made

Playground of dimples, joy's rose-seat;

And could these eyes ope they would speak

Of one who bought her dreams of Death and paid.

If blind thou shrinkest yet

To meet Truth bare,

Then as thou'st dealt with this pale maid

Life shall thine own besiege.

Injustice holds

No sanctuary folds;

To fence out care

We must the planet hedge;

Justice is God, and waits

Behind our blood-built tower-gates;

And as indifference

Was once our soul's pretence,

Who then shall heed us, who shall understand,

When our crushed hearts lie in the vengeant hand?

But is she dead? Faint on my ears

A far-off singing falls,

Sweet from time's sleep

Amid the stainless years

Yet unawake to men.

Nearer it calls,

Like music through a rain,

And o'er the distant ridges sweep

Soft garments and young feet. O maidens, ye

Are like a cloud in beauty,— nay, more swift!

If that the milky stream of stars could lift

Its clustered glory, hasten free,

And while we marvelled pass from east to west,

Then ye would mirrored be!

The hills seem lit with brides,

And she whose death-cold breast

Was shrouded here, is't she who guides

This fearless company

Sure of earth's welcome as a maiden Spring?

And in their eyes the dreams she fought for,

In their hands the flowers she sought for,

On their lips the songs that here she did not sing!

Not dead! While Destiny hath need

Of living dream and deed,

Ay, she shall deathless be!

While aught availeth, and God is,

For in her hope lay His!

O, ye who mar Love's face

Ere Love be born, leave not this place,

Pass not this white form by,

Till from assaulted skies ye hear the cry,

“She is not dead till ye have murdered Me!”