And if she goes to make a call

Or out to take a walk

We leave our work when she returns
And run to hear her talk.

We had not dreamed these things were so
Of sorrow and of mirth.

Her speech is as a thousand eyes
Through which we see the earth.

God wove a web of loveliness,
Of clouds and stars and birds,
But made not anything at all
So beautiful as words.

They shine around our simple earth

With golden shadowings,

And every common thing they touch
Is exquisite with wings.

There's nothing poor and nothing small
But is made fair with them.

They are the hands of living faith
That touch the garment's hem.

They are as fair as bloom or air,
They shine like any star,

And I am rich who learned from her

How beautiful they are.

Anna Hempstead Branch

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX

TIDEN FOUNDA IONS

MOTHER AND POET

DEAD! One of them shot by the sea in the east,

And one of them shot in the west by the

sea.

Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast

And are wanting a great song for Italy free,

Let none look at me!

Yet I was a poetess only last year,

And good at my art, for a woman men

said;

But this woman, this, who is agoniz'd here, -The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head

Forever instead.

What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain! What art is she good at, but hurting her

breast

With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain?

Ah boys, how you hurt! you were strong

as you pressed

And I proud, by that test.

What art's for a woman? To hold on

her knees

Both darlings; to feel all their arms round her throat,

Cling, strangle a little, to sew by de

grees

And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat;

To dream and to doat..

To teach them. . . . It stings there! I made them indeed

Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,

That a country's a thing men should die for at need.

I prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant cast out.

And when their eyes flashed... O my beautiful eyes! . .

I exulted; nay, let them go forth at the

wheels

Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise

When one sits quite alone! Then one

weeps, then one kneels!

God, how the house feels!