Page:Carroll - Phantasmagoria and other poems (1869).djvu/174

162  Hemmed in by social forms she pines in vain: Man has his work, but what can woman do?"
 * And answer came there from the creeping gloom,

The creeping gloom that settled into night: "Peace, for thy lot is other than a man's; His is a path of thorns; he beats them down— He faces death—he wrestles with despair: Thine is of roses; to adorn and cheer His barren lot, and hide the thorns in flowers."
 * She spake again, in bitter tone she spake;

"Aye, as a toy, the puppet of an hour; Or a fair posy, newly plucked at morn, But flung aside and withered ere the night."
 * And answer came there from the creeping gloom,

The creeping gloom that blackened into night: "So shalt thou be the lamp to light his path, What time the shades of sorrow close around."
 * And, so it seemed to her, an awful light

Pierced slowly through the darkness, orbed, and grew,