THE VIRGIN
73
Childbirth sobered me .
I loved
the child , the only human
love
I ever
tasted , and I sacrificed
The popularity , the infamy,
Of my old life ; I sought another world .
I “ got religion " -how I hate
the
phrase !
So jest the matron newspapers . ...
For I will do without a mother's name
If only I may keep a son's love still ! '
It is not
here
that we
can
enter
on
the
fearful
tragedy of these short dozen pages , suffice
it to say ,
that it was that of Phædra and Hippolytus
, the sexes
however being reversed .
Shamed , insulted by her son ,
she still dares kiss him :
Why I dare
Now take your head
between
my hands and kiss
Your forehead with these
shameful lips of mine,
These harlot lips , and kiss you unashamed ? ?
Outraged , ravished by the offspring of her vice , yet
child of her heart , she
still can
say as she
sees him
stand before her , a fiendish monster , with
the bloody
razor with which
he has just
slain Madeline , a pure
and innocent girl :
Kill yourself.
Such was her love , her duty to her motherhood ; very
different indeed was the love of Ratoum .
But anon .
Another
picture
of maternal
affection
, this
time
more
musical , we
find
in
“
The
Spring
after, ” of
“ Mysteries :
Lyrical
and Dramatic
" :
No smallest cloud between me and my bride
Came like a little mist ; one tender fear,
Too sweet to speak of, closed the dying year
1 The Mother's Tragedy , vol. i, p. 157.
? Ibid . vol. i, p. 161.