One, with a hungering heart unsatisfied,
Mourns for imagined joys that were denied.
The other, pierced by recollected sin,
Broods o’er the scars of pleasures that have been.
EASTER MORN
A truth that has long lain buried
At Superstition’s door,
I see, in the dawn uprising
In all its strength once more.
Hidden away in the darkness,
By Ignorance crucified,
Crushed under stones of dogmas—
Yet lo! it has not died.
It stands in the light transfigured,
It speaks from the heights above,
“Each soul is its own redeemer;
There is no law but Love.”
And the spirits of men are gladdened
As they welcome this Truth re-born
With its feet on the grave of Error
And its eyes to the Easter Morn.
BLIND
Whatever a man may think or feel
He can tell to the world and it hears aright;
But it bids the woman conceal, conceal,
And woe to the thoughts that at last ignite.
She may serve up gossip or dwell on fashion,
Or play the critic with speech unkind,
But alas for the woman who speaks with passion!
For the world is blind—for the world is blind.
It is woman who sits with her starved desire,
And drinks to sorrow in cups of tears;
She reads by the light of her soul on fire
The secrets of love through lonely years:
But out of all she has felt or heard
Or read by the glow of her soul’s white flame,
If she dare but utter aloud one word—
How the world cries shame!—how the world cries shame!