The weevil there that rends apartMy cotton also tears my heart.Here too, your father, lean and black,Paid court to me with all the knackOf any dandy in the town,And here were born, and here have grown,His sons and mine, as lean and black.What ghosts there are in this old shackOf births and deaths, soft times and hard!I count it little being barredFrom those who undervalue me.I have my own soul's ecstasy.Men may not bind the summer sea,Nor set a limit to the stars;The sun seeps through all iron bars;The moon is ever manifest.These things my heart always possessed.And more than this (and here's the crown)No man, my son, can batter downThe star-flung ramparts of the mind.So much for flesh; I am resigned,Whom God has made shall He not guide?"
So spake my mother, and her prideFor one small minute in its tideBore all my bitterness away.I saw the thin bent form, the gray
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