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THE MOTHER’S TRAGEDY
CORA.
Rest, sunny head! A little while to sleep,
And then—perhaps the Mother in a dream
May comfort you. A woman’s love is this
To have one heart, an undivided love ;
But Hers—division in the universe
Makes multiple each part. Sweet Madeline,
Believe me, She will come to maiden dreams,
Bestow Her peace, and so direct the life
That is not unto God unconsecrate
For being dedicated unto love !
[#xzt MADELINE.
Cora remains thinking.
I was no bolder twenty years ago !
Time, Time, thou maker and destroyer
both,
Only in resurrection hast no part !
[ Broods,
SPIRIT OF TRAGEDY (wth light
enjoyment).
How light and how agreeable,
Paved pathway to the gate of hell!
See how all virtues, graces, shine,
Till woman half appears divine !
But I am waiting, watching still
The treason of the powers of ill.
Soft, moveless, as a tigress glides,
Strange laughing devilry abides
Its hour to poison. How they gloat,
The fiends, upon her lips and throat !
They touch her heart, they speer/ her eyes,
They linger on the lovely prize !
O dead she thought them! It is written:
‘¢ Eve’s heel is by the serpent bitten,
His head she bruises.” No indeed !
Not woman, but the woman’s seed !
Hark ! in the cloak of ‘‘ Love of Truth”
They whisper ‘‘ Memory of Youth” ;
And, mindful of the deadliest sin,
Hint: ‘‘ Sinful woman, look within !”
1 To search, with the idea of looking more
deeply. The grotesque word is used to suggest
the quaint inspection of the malicious goblins.
CORA.
Ah me! if she could look within a glass!
With spells and pantacles? well fortified !
I have a glass whose bitter destiny
No wizard may conjure. Arise ye there,
Old hours of horror, clear by one and
one,
In the confused and tossing ocean,
Where memory picks spar and spar from
out
The dreadful whirlpool hardly yet appeased,
To join together in imagination
The ship—the wreck! And yet I stand at
last
Secure in my unselfish love to them,
Kepaid in mine own currency. I trust
God hath made smooth the road beneath the
hearse
Of my forgetful age. All must be well.
SPIRIT OF TRAGEDY (wzth sumbre joy).
Mortals never learn from stories
How catastrophe becomes ;
How above the victor’s glories
In the trumpets and the drums,
And the cry of millions ‘‘ Master !”’
Looms the shadow of disaster.
Every hour a man hath said
‘* That at least is scotched and dead.”
Some one circumstance: ‘‘ At last
That, and its effects, are past.”
Some one terror—subtle foe !—
‘*T have laid that spectre low !”
They know not, learn not, cannot calcu-
late
How subtly Fate
1 The crystal sphere is habitually used by
clairvoyants and others for purposes of divina-
tion. Such a globe should be ceremonially
consecrated and vitalised. .
2 From say, all, a diminutive. The word
thus means ‘‘a universe in little,’ It is usually
a square or circle of vellum or other material,
designed and painted appropriately to its
purpose; aspirit is then evoked and com-
manded to dwell therein, that it may do the
required office.