I Am the Woman

I am also the Mother: of two that I bore

I comfort and feed the slayer, feed and comfort the slain.

Did they number my daughters and sons? I am mother of more!

Many a head they marked not, here in my bosom has lain,

Babbling with unborn lips in a tongue to be,

Far, incredible matters, all familiar to me.

Still would the man come whispering, 'Wife!' but many a time my breast

Took him not as a husband: I soothed him and laid him to rest

Even as the babe of my body, and knew him for such.

My mouth is open to speak, that was dumb too much!

I say to you I am the Mother; and under the sword

Which flamed each way to harry us forth from the Lord,

I saw Him young at the portal, weeping and staying the rod,

And I, even I was His mother, and I yearned as the mother of God.

I am also the Spirit. The Sisters laughed

When I sat with them dumb in the portals, over my lamp,

Half asleep in the doors: for my gown was raught

Off at the shoulder to shield from the wind and the rain

The wick I tended against the mysterious hour

When the Silent City of Being should ring with song,

As the Lord came in with Life to the marriage bower.

'Look!' laughed the elder Sisters; and crimson with shame

I hid my breast away from the rosy flame.

'Ah!' cried the leaning Sisters, pointing, doing me wrong,

'Do you see?' laughed the wanton Sisters, 'She will get her lover ere long!'

And it was but a little while till unto my need

He was given indeed,

And we walked where waxing world after world went by;

And I said to my lover, 'Let us begone,

'Oh, let us begone, and try

'Which of them all the fairest to dwell in is,

'Which is the place for us, our desirable clime!'

But he said, 'They are only the huts and the little villages,

Pleasant to go and lodge in rudely over the vintage—time!'

Scornfully spake he, being unwise,

Being flushed at heart because of our walking together.

But I was mute with passionate prophecies;

My heart went veiled and faint in the golden weather,

While universe drifted by after still universe.

Then I cried, 'Alas, we must hasten and lodge therein,

One after one, and in every star that they shed!