O, Lover, trust her not!
She biddeth thee in siren song,
And clotheth in a silken rag her treachery,
To mock thee and to wreak
Her vengeance at thy hearth.
Cast up the visor’s skirt!
Thou’lt see the snakey strands.
A god of war, indeed! I brand ye as a lie!
Such outbreaks as this are rare in her poetry, but in her conversation she occasionally gives expression to anger or scorn or contempt, though, as stated, she seldom dignifies such emotions in verse. Love, as I have said, is her favorite theme in numbers, the love of God first and far foremost, and after that brother love and mother love. To the love of man for woman, or woman for man, there is seldom a reference in her poems, although it is the theme of some of her dramatic works. There is an exquisite expression of mother love in the spinning wheel lullaby already given, but for rapturous glorification of infancy, it would be difficult to surpass this, which does not reveal its purport until the last line:
Ah, greet the day, which, like a golden butterfly,