THE PARSEE WOMAN

Cast me out from among you,

I will not see my child

Laid aloft where the vultures

May clamour for him, wild!

The earth you say is holy,

Not to be soiled by death,

And a Parsee still should hold divine

What Zoroaster saith.

Ay, and so I will hold it,

But see his pale sweet face,

As pure as the palest flower

Left dead in Spring's embrace.

The sun we worship daily

Shrined it for seven years,

Then shall it go to cruel beaks,

There where the sea-wind veers?

No, no, no! tho you send me

A beggar from your door,

You, my lord, whom I honour,

And you, his sisters four,

To whom there have come no children

To make your bosoms feel

How even a thought so full of throe

Can make my sick brain reel.

Ah, you are deaf? you scorn me

And loathe, as a thing defiled?

My lord, I am but a woman

Who longs to see her child

Laid in a tomb, entreasured

Under the shrouding sod.

O would I had never given birth,

Or that earth had no God!