| |
| THESE are my children, one boy, one girl. | |
| They have the beauty all children have; | |
| They have entered the trap all children enter— | |
| The trap that was set by God knows who. | |
| |
| These are the flowers of love and spring— | 5 |
| The apple-blossom and daffodils, | |
| Tulip and bluebell, lilac and hawthorn, | |
| And the young green leaves on the trees. | |
| But earth, the giver, is anhungered too. | |
| |
| They do not know, children and flowers, | 10 |
| That the ground beneath them is what it is. | |
| The sun and the rain, their laughter and tears, | |
| Are all that they know. | |
| |
| I watch them at play, and I know the part | |
| I have played myself in bringing them here. | 15 |
| I too was once in the outer forest; | |
| And, decoyed like them, have decoyed them in, | |
| To be decoys in their turn, perhaps, | |
| To my grandchildren (will they be mine?): | |
| And so it goes on, father and son, daughter and mother. | 20 |
| |
| But they look at me with their trustful eyes, | |
| And they laugh at me in their games and graces. | |
| They come and caress me, they love me so— | |
| The thoughtless-treacherous, eagerly lecherous | |
| Knave and husband whom they call father, | 25 |
| The man who betrayed them to certain death. | |
| |
| And I am their wistful comrade and watchdog. | |
| I go with them sometimes into the streets, | |
| Among the crowds, and I share their wonder, | |
| A child with my children; and my man’s form | 30 |
| And my man’s strength is their contrite shield, | |
| And my heart is a pool of tenderness for them. | |
| For they do not know what the earth is yet, | |
| Nor what the clay can be to the body. | |
| When they know, they will no longer be children; | 35 |
| They will make their link in the chain of treason. | |
| And so it goes on, father and son, daughter and mother. | |
| |
