Dora Sigerson Shorter

“ Leaving nought to inheritance, will-power, or surroundings of man.
He is dead, mother, dead; I his friend might have made his earth fair,
But I crept like a scorpion to sting all his hopes to despair:
Robbed his body of this world's joys, and his soul of the hope
Of that other that sings through the air at the pull of the rope,
Till my mad passion swells at the tongues of the bells.”
“Hush thee and listen, my son, my son, for the bells are the voice of love.”
(All the things He made live can their Father forgive.)
“O mother! a sinner's cry may be heard above. ”

“ At its kindred passion without in the howling night.
‘Where is thy brother?’ O question not giving respite.
O mother! what do they answer, those lips, blood red,
Of Nature, in sport with her thousand deaths? I questioned. ”

“ Foolish world, as if men were not judged, by each different mind.
By God’s justice, not that of the world’s great classing of kind:
“This is right, that is wrong,” as though minds were all made on one plan.
Leaving nought to inheritance, will-power, or surroundings of man. ”