CHORUS OF FIRST WOMEN.
Nay, what do you seek?
If of men we be chained,
Our chains be of gold,
If the fetters we break
What conquest is gained?
Shall the hill-top outspread a pavilion more safe than our
palaces hold?
Without toil we are fed,
We have gold to our hire,
We have kings at our thrall,
And made smooth is our bed
For the fools of desire.
We falter the world with our eyelids, at our laughter men
scatter and fall.
What is freedom but danger,
And death and disaster?
We are safe: Fool, to crave
The unknown, the stranger!
More fettered the back than the burden; man bows; he is slave
to a slave!
ANDROMEDA.
Yes, in most bitter waters have they drowned
My spirit, and my soul grows grey on sleep!
What if with wreaths my empty hands are bound?
I am slave for all their roses, and I keep
A tryst with cunning, and a troth with tears.
Time has kissed out my lips, and I am dumb.
I am so long called fool, I am become
That fool—of street or shrine. My body bears
Burden of men and children. I have been
All that man has desired or dreamed of me.
I have trodden a double-weary way—with Sin,
Or with Sin's pale, cold sister Chastity.
I am a thing of twilight. I am afraid.
Dull now and tame now; of myself so shamed.
Fortressed against redemption; visited
Of the old dream so seldom, as things tamed
Forget the life that their wild brother leads.
I am a hurt beast flinching at the light.
I have been palaced from the sun, and night
Runs in my blood, and all night's blushless deeds!
CHORUS OF SECOND WOMEN.
Oh world so blind, so dumb to our desiring,—
To the vague cry and clamour of our being!
Oh world so dark to our supreme aspiring,—
To the pitiful strange travail of our freeing!
We weary not for love and lips to love us;
These have been ours too often and too long;
We have been hived too close; too sweet above us
Tastes the bee's mouth to our honey-wearied tongue.
Not love, not love! Love was our first undoing,
We have lived too long on heart-beats. None can tame
The mind's new hunger, famished and pursuing,
Unleashed, and crying its oppressor's name.
All that the world could give man's mind inherits:
Two paths were set us. Baffled, weeping, yearning,
Tossed between God and Man, rebellious spirits,
We wandered, now escaped and unreturning.