Page:Poems Dorr.djvu/27

Stains of labor are on her hands,
 Lost is the young form's airy grace;
And standing there on the shining sands
 You read her fate in her weary face.
Up with the dawn to toil all day
 For meagre fare and a place to sleep;
Seldom a moment to dream or play,
 Little leisure to laugh or weep.

Beautiful Maud, you think, maybe,
 Lying back in your velvet chair,
There is naught in common with her and thee,—
 You scarce could breathe in the self-same air.
But the warm blood in her girlish heart
 Leaps quick as yours at her nature's call,
And ye, though moving so far apart,
 Must share one destiny after all.

Love shall come to you both one day,
 For still must be what aye hath been;
And under satin or russet gray
 Hearts will open to let him in.
Motherhood with its joy and woe
 Each must compass through burning pain,—
You, fair Maud, with your brow of snow,
 Madge with her brown hands labor-stained.

Each shall sorrow and each shall weep,
 Though one is in hovel, one in hall;
Over your gold the frost shall creep,
 As over her jet the snows will fall.
Exquisite Maud, you lift your eyes
 At Madge out yonder under the sun;
Yet know ye both by the countless ties
 Of a common womanhood ye are one!