Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.
To his Mother, C. L. M.John Masefield (18781967)
I
My mother’s life made me a man.
Through all the months of human birth
Her beauty fed my common earth.
I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir,
But through the death of some of her.
She cannot see the life she gave.
For all her love, she cannot tell
Whether I use it ill or well,
Nor knock at dusty doors to find
Her beauty dusty in the mind.
She would not know her little son,
I am so grown. If we should meet,
She would pass by me in the street,
Unless my soul’s face let her see
My sense of what she did for me.
My debt to her and womankind?
What woman’s happier life repays
Her for those months of wretched days?
For all my mouthless body leech’d
Ere Birth’s releasing hell was reach’d?
In thanks to that dear woman dead?
Men triumph over women still,
Men trample women’s rights at will,
And man’s lust roves the world untamed.
O grave, keep shut lest I be shamed!