Page:Carroll - Three Sunsets.djvu/28

THE PATH OF ROSES. Where no vain marble mockery Insults with loud and boastful lie The simple soldier's memory:

Where sometimes little children go, And read, in whisper'd accent slow, The name of him who sleeps below."

Her voice died out: like one in dreams she sat. "Alas!" she sighed. "For what can Woman do? Her life is aimless, and her death unknown: 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 lonely life, and hide the thorns in flowers."
 * She spake again: in bitter tone she spake:

"Aye, as a toy, the puppet of an hour, 10