Page:The New Penelope.djvu/301

Rh Itself upon itself, 'till, hour by hour,

It runs its sources dry, and so must end.

That race is doomed, behind whose lattices

Its once free women are constrained to peer

Upon the world of men with vacant eyes;

It was not so in Homer's time, I hear.

But Eastern slaves have eaten of your store,

Till in your homes all eating bread are slaves;

They're built into your walls, beside your door,

And bend beneath your lofty architraves.

A woman of the race that looks upon

The sculptured emblems of captivity,

Shall bear a slave or tyrant for a son;

And none shall know the worth of liberty.

Am I seditious?—Nay, then, I will keep

My lesson for your dames when next they steal

On tip-toe to an audience. Pray sleep

Securely, and dream well: we wish your weal!

Why, what vain prattle: but my heart is sore

With thinking on the emptiness of things,

And these Athenians, treacherous to the core,

Who hung on Pericles with flatterings.

I would indeed I were a little child,

Resting my tired limbs on the sunny sands

In far Miletus, where the airs blow mild,

And countless looms throb under busy hands.

The busy hand must calm the busy thought,

And labor cool the passions of the hour;

To the tired weaver, when his web is wrought,

What signifies the party last in power?

But here in Athens, 'twixt philosophers

Who reason on the nature of the soul;

And all the vain array of orators,

Who strove to hold the people in control.