Louise Bryant

“ Death comes so slow, with lagging steps...that pause...
Before they reach me." "Why," I said, "It would seem
That you could find another love...another cause...
To strive for...Do you have no babes...or dream
No dreams, nor see the future all agleam--
With promise?" ”

“ Do all things for them,...even those of lust.
The law came down upon me with a din,...
It took them both away--my babes--it said...
I was a thing of shame and marked with sin
And babes were pure in heart and must be led
In whiter ways than mine,...who was not wed!
And I grow flowers in a little box
High in a window in a dark old street...
Where children never come, to smile at phlox
Or marigold or primrose....There I meet
Only the wretched...still my heart does beat--
For Death must very old have grown, he does not
Knock upon my battered door or lurk
Beside my flowers. ”

“ Their tired eyes, and hands, and tired souls.
It was the hour when the workers pause at last
And seek those murky, fetid, loathsome holes
They call their homes; if thus their lot be cast.
Poor wrecks of lives! Poor ships with broken mast! ”