Counter-Currents
(For a coin, for the weaving of my children's lace and lawn),
Feet that pace beside the loom, hands that cannot rest:
How can she know motherhood, whose strength is gone?
I who took no heed of her, starved and labor worn,
I against whose placid heart my sleepy gold-heads lie,
Round my path they cry to me, little souls unborn,—
God of Life—Creator! It was I! It was I."
Now if by "I" is meant the average woman who wears the "robe," the "ribbon," the "feather," and possibly—though rarely—the "wreath across my hair," "I" must protest distinctly against assuming a guilt which is none of mine. I have not shut my little sister in a factory, any more than I have ranged the meadow-lands, "free from sun to sun." What I probably am doing is trying to persuade my sister to cook my dinner, and sweep my house, and help me to take care of my "gold-heads," who are
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