TO MY SISTER.

O sister, God is very good —

Thou art a woman now:

O sister, be thy womanhood

A baptism on thy brow!

For what?— Do ancient stories lie

Of Titans long ago,

The children of the lofty sky

And mother earth below?

Nay, walk not now upon the ground

Some sons of heavenly mould?

Some daughters of the Holy, found

In earthly garments’ fold?

He said, who did and spoke the truth:

“Gods are the sons of God.”

And so the world's Titanic youth

Strives homeward by one road.

Then live thou, sister, day and night,

An earth-child of the sky,

For ever climbing up the height

Of thy divinity.

Still in thy mother's heart-embrace,

Waiting thy hour of birth,

Thou growest by the genial grace

Of the child-bearing earth.

Through griefs and joys, each sad and sweet,

Thou shalt attain the end;

Till then a goddess incomplete —

O evermore my friend!

Nor is it pride that striveth so:

The height of the Divine

Is to be lowly‘ mid the low;

No towering cloud — a mine;

A mine of wealth and warmth and song,

An ever-open door;

For when divinely born ere long,

A woman thou the more.

For at the heart of womanhood

The child's great heart doth lie;

At childhood's heart, the germ of good,

Lies God's simplicity.

So, sister, be thy womanhood

A baptism on thy brow

For something dimly understood,

And which thou art not now;

But which within thee, all the time,

Maketh thee what thou art;

Maketh thee long and strive and climb —

The God-life at thy heart.