TO A CHILDLESS WOMAN
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ou think I cannot understand. Ah, but I do ...I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you.I wonder if you'd loathe my pity, if you knew. But you _shall_ know. I've carried in my heart too longThis secret burden. Has not silence wrought _your_ wrong--Brought you to dumb and wintry middle-age, with greyUnfruitful withering?--Ah, the pitiless things I say... What do you ask your God for, at the end of day,Kneeling beside your bed with bowed and hopeless head?What mercy can He give you?--Dreams of the unbornChildren that haunt your soul like loving words unsaid--Dreams, as a song half-heard through sleep in early morn? I see you in the chapel, where you bend beforeThe enhaloed calm of everlasting MotherhoodThat wounds your life; I see you humbled to adoreThe painted miracle you've never understood.Tender, and bitter-sweet, and shy, I've watched you holdingAnother's child. O childless woman, was it thenThat, with an instant's cry, your heart, made young again,Was crucified for ever--those poor arms enfoldingThe life, the consummation that had been denied you?I too have longed for children. Ah, but you must not weep.Something I have to whisper as I kneel beside you...And you must pray for me before you fall asleep.
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