"Tell me, gentle Earth, who hast loved me best,
Since I left the warmth of your loving breast,
Is it all of life—this, to live and die
As a creature dumb, when I fain would cry,
"As I count the days going one by one,
Knowing working moments are almost done,
While I long to do better work than now?—
Tell me, tender one, if I may, and how?"
On the brown Earth's waiting and glowing breast
Every golden head came at last to rest;
For they heard her say, "In your fall rejoice;
Through this seeming ill thou wilt find a voice:
"Through the sickle sharp, through the pounding
flail,
Cut and beaten down, rising crushed and pale—
Through the smirch of ink, through the tramp of lead,
Shalt thou speak to men when they deem thee dead."
It was even so. When a printed word
Had the quiet pulse of a reader stirred,
She had found her voice. Like the beaten grain,
Souls are taught to speak out of depths of pain.
FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER.
"FAIR Jennie Bell, what are you seeking?
And why are you bending your head
As you slowly walk over the highway?"
"Just seeking luck-clover," she said.
