University of Virginia Library

TWO SONNETS

THE NOBLER WOMAN

I

Through age on age the eyes of woman weep,
The heart of woman, infinite in power,
Sorrows with summer, with the dying flower,
With all bright things that fail, and fade, and sleep.
From her soul's height her aspirations leap
Into the void, dashed down as from a tower.
Her cry of pain from wind-swept bower to bower
Is as the sea's wail blown from deep to deep.
Once, once, she sinned, and this tempestuous orb
Whose wild lips hang upon her wondrous kiss
Even at her fall was hurled to the abyss
Wherein the balefires and the storms absorb
Pale Eden's light that gleams, as gleam afar
The amazing turrets of the morning star.

THE NOBLER WOMAN

II

Yet when she rises, sovereign, stedfast, sure,
Worshipped by angels, who seemed once alone,
Swaying the epochs from her boundless throne,
Supreme at last upon a planet pure,—
Strong, who could so unspeakably endure,—
Immortal, she whose task is to atone
For death through her made human, and the moan
Of multitudinous ages since the lure
Of Satan drew her from her seat sublime
Within the Paradise wherein man dreamed,
While in his eyes the light of godship gleamed
And all was love, and nought was shame or crime:
Then, shall she rule superb, her high task done,
And night and hell shall perish in the sun.