THE MOTHER'S TRAGEDY
The trifles that shall make it master yet
Of the strong soul that bade itself forget.
CORA.
Let me not shrink! Truth always purifies.
I will go through those twe impossible
Actual years. The city was itself;
Hard thinking if hard drinking—sober-sides!
One night I stepped up tremulous on the stage,
Sang something, found my senses afterward
Only to that intolerable sound
Of terrible applause. They shook the sky
With calling me to answer. And J lay—
A storm of weeping swept across my frame—
Till the polite, the hateful manager
Led me to face a nation’s lunatic
Roar of delight. I soon got over that,
And over—yes, the other thing. Three months—
They used to quote me on the Stock Exchange!
I will say this to me, I will not shrink:
Look up, you coward, Cora Vavasour!
Which fathered me the bastard? Every rag,
Prurient licksores of society,
Gave it a different father. Am I sure
Myself? The shameful Mammon was his name,
Glittering gold! I loved my opulence,
Cursed my “misfortune.” Childbirth sobered me.
I loved the child, the only human love
I ever tasted, and I sacrificed
The popularity, the infamy,