Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Poems. III. FriendshipConstance C. W. Naden (18581889)
T
Of man or woman, alien or akin,
’Tis thine own Self that for admission waits—
Rise, let it in.
Keep him, if so it may be, till the end,
If thou have strength and purity of heart
To be his friend.
With noble thoughts, and send him forth with song,
Nor only, when night falls, his wounds to bind;
But all day long
To triumph when, by others’ aid, he wins,
To carry all his sorrows, and yet more—
To bear his sins;
Which suffers wound on wound, yet strongly lives,
Which takes no bribe of tender look or tone,
And yet forgives.
Thy love for comrade, leader, kinsman, wife—
Seek no elixir to restore false breath,
And loathsome life.
With all thy store of wine, and oil, and bread:
Some passions are but flesh—thine had a soul,
And that is dead.