Page:The New Penelope.djvu/295

Rh Should you say that the Christ would reprove us,

If we found him and told him our trouble?

It is fearful with no one to love us,

And our pain and despair growing double.

It is mad'ning to feel we're excluded

From the homes of the mothers that bore us;

And that man, by no false arts deluded,

May enter unchallenged before us.

It is hard to be humble when trodden;

We cannot be meek when oppressed;

Nor pure while our souls are made sodden

With loathing that can't be confessed;

Or true, while our bread and our shelter

By a lying pretence is obtained—

Deceived, in deception we welter;

By a touch are we evermore stained.

O hard lot of woman! the creature

Of a creature whose God is asleep,

Or gone on a journey. You teach her

She was made to sin, suffer, and weep;

We wait for a new revelation,

We cry for a God of our own;

O God unrevealed, bring salvation,

From our necks lift the collar of stone!

REPOSE.

I lay me down straight, with closed eyes,

And pale hands folded across my breast,

Thinking, unpained, of the sad surprise

Of those who shall find me thus fall'n to rest;

And the grief in their looks when they learn no endeavor,

Can disturb my repose—for my sleep is forever.