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| IN the dark womb where I began | |
| My mother’s life made me a man. | |
| Through all the months of human birth | |
| Her beauty fed my common earth. | |
| I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, | 5 |
| But through the death of some of her. | |
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| Down in the darkness of the grave | |
| She cannot see the life she gave. | |
| For all her love, she cannot tell | |
| Whether I use it ill or well, | 10 |
| Nor knock at dusty doors to find | |
| Her beauty dusty in the mind. | |
| |
| If the grave’s gates could be undone, | |
| She would not know her little son, | |
| I am so grown. If we should meet, | 15 |
| She would pass by me in the street, | |
| Unless my soul’s face let her see | |
| My sense of what she did for me. | |
| |
| What have I done to keep in mind | |
| My debt to her and womankind? | 20 |
| What woman’s happier life repays | |
| Her for those months of wretched days? | |
| For all my mouthless body leech’d | |
| Ere Birth’s releasing hell was reach’d? | |
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| What have I done, or tried, or said | 25 |
| In thanks to that dear woman dead? | |
| Men triumph over women still, | |
| Men trample women’s rights at will, | |
| And man’s lust roves the world untamed. * * * * * | |
| O grave, keep shut lest I be shamed! | 30 |
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