Never again to feel that little kiss—
That hungry kiss—that heavy little head,
Pressing and groping, eager to be fed.
My breast is burning with the weight of this—
My arms are empty and my heart is dead.
Through the long nights never to hear the cry—
The little cry that called me from my sleep;
Always from now a vigil black to keep;
Always awake and listening to lie,
While over my seared heart the ashes heap.
Ah, God!—there is no God. There is no rest,
No rest. No pity. No release from pain.
How could God give those little hands again?
How could God cool the throbbing of my breast?
Oh—little hands ... that in the dust have lain!
The Masses Lydia Gibson
A HANDFUL OF DUST
I stooped to the silent earth and lifted a handful of her dust.
Was it a handful of humanity I held?
Was it the crumbled and blown beauty of a woman or a babe?
For over the hills of earth blows the dust of the withered generations;
And not a water-drop in the sea but was once a blood-drop or a tear,
And not an atom of sap in leaf or bud but was once the love-sap in a human being;
And not a lump of soil but was once the rosy curve of lip or breast or cheek.
Handful of dust, you stagger me;
I did not dream the world was so full of the dead,
And the air I breathe so rich with the bewildering past.
Kiss of what girls is on the wind?
Whisper of what lips is in the cup of my hand?
Cry of what deaths is in the break of the wave tossed by the sea?
I am enfolded in an air of rushing wings;
I am engulfed in clouds of love-lives gone.
Who leans yonder? Helen of Greece?
Who walks with me? Isolde?
The trees are shaking down the blossoms from Juliet’s breast,
And the bee drinks honey from the lips of David.
Come, girl, my comrade;
Stand close, sun-tanned one, with your bright eyes lifted.
Behold this dust!
This is you: this of the earth under our feet is you.
Raised by what miracle? Shaped by what magic?
Breathed into by what god?
And a hundred years hence one like myself may come,
And stoop, and take a handful of the yielding earth,
And never dream that in his palm
Lies she that laughed and ran and lived beside this sea
On an afternoon a hundred years before.
Listen to the dust in this hand.
Who is trying to speak to us?
Century James Oppenheim