Awaiting death by the dry water-hole ; Patient, persistent, never leaving.
TRUTH: Age, that second childhood which should smile toward
Death, And hear, once more, those singers Which Life's noises have shut out.
POET: The toilers know not the song of the waters, Nor the sympathy of the grass ; They bathe not their souls in the pools of leisure, Nor ever cast their eyes upward
Where the clouds, reckless, set their silver sails upon the upper main.
TRUTH: Nor ever look upon the meadows where the carefully tended cattle lie among the buttercups.
POET: They know not the sweet, respected weaknesses of age.
TRUTH: Age cannot work, and Death delays too long.
X.
TRUTH: Freedom is a domed and pillared palace, The sanctuary where Birth is ennobled.
POET: I will not sing the ecstasy of the mother's birth-pang Till Birth be free as Death ; Nor will I voice the nobility of Motherhood, Till all motherhood be noble as Life itself. I will sing a song of Bastards, The free children of free mothers.
58
