We are arming, waking, terribly unfolding,
The spent world shudders in a new creation,
A dread and pitiless flowering beholding,
Burst from the dark root of our long frustration!
ANDROMEDA.
Did God but build this temple for desire
That man defraud my birthright with a kiss?
Did he not give me a spirit to aspire
Beyond man's fortunes and necessities?
Man chains the thing he fears, who fears the free;
No wildest beast was tamed as I was tamed,
No prey has been so tracked, no flesh so shamed;
Man hunts no quarry as he hunted me.
Of all the things created one alone
Rose from the earth his equal; only the might
Of his brute strength could bid my soul renounce
Its claim—forswear its just, predestined right.
To what poor shape of folly am I grown,
In whom God breathed an equal spirit once!
CHORUS OF FIRST WOMEN.
Oh sheltering arms that have bound you,
Oh hearts you have shaped to your will!
The lordliest lovers have crowned you,
They have knelt as they kneel to you still.
Why speak you so ill of such lovers,
Why question the will of such lords?
For your lips, for your laughter, Love offers
The world on a litter of swords,
They have borne for you death and disasters,
They have held you with kingdoms at stake.
The kings of the earth and the masters
Were poets and fools for your sake!
ANDROMEDA.
Was I made free for all their swords and songs?
Do fairest songs sung to caged birds sound sweet?
Did their spears hold the door whence came my wrongs?
Did they sing my spirit and the hurt of it?
There was no battle for my freedom's sake;
They never sang for pity of me. Not those
Who laud it cage the eagle: not those who break
The delicate stem most deeply love the rose.
If we have taken the path towards the hills
They have noosed our feet, they have kennelled us again.
If we have dared for separate minds and wills,
We have marched to men's laughter, and the mock of men.
Oh, lords, if you be strong why fear to raise
Our groping, pitiful bodies from the dust?
If you were pre-ordained to shape our ways,
Why has your power shaped that way so ill?
Only the hireling master wreaks his will
On slaves, lest rulers they become at last,
And his poor hour of pride is waned and passed:
The rightful lord fears never to be just.