Thou who hast made for such sure purposes The mightiest and the meanest thing that is— Planned out the lives of insects of the air With fine precision and consummate care, Thou who hast taught the bee the secret power Of carrying on love’s laws ’twixt flower and flower, p. 69Why didst Thou shape this mortal frame of mine, If Heavenly joys alone were Thy design? Wherefore the wonder of my woman’s breast, By lips of lover and of babe unpressed, If spirit children only shall reply Unto my ever urgent mother cry? Why should the rose be guided to its own, And my love-craving heart beat on alone? p. 69 III Yet do I understand; for Thou hast made Something more subtle than this heart of me; A finer part of me To be obeyed. Albeit I am a sister to the earth, This nature self is not the whole of me; The deathless soul of me Has nobler birth. The primal woman hungers for the man; My better self demands the mate of me; The spirit fate of me, Part of Thy plan. p. 70Nature is instinct with the mother-need; So is my heart; but ah, the child of me Should, undefiled of me, Spring from love’s seed. p. 70 And if, in barren chastity, I must Know but in dreams that perfect choice of me, Still will the voice of me Proclaim God just. p. 71BROTHERHOOD p. 71 When in the even ways of life The old world jogs along, Our little coloured flags we flaunt: Our little separate selves we vaunt: Each pipes his native song. And jealousy and greed and pride Join their ungodly hands, And this round lovely world divide Into opposing lands. But let some crucial hour of pain Sound from the tower of time, Then consciousness of brotherhood Wakes in each heart the latent good, And men become sublime. As swarming insects of the night, Fly when the sun bursts in, Self fades, before love’s radiant light, And all the world is kin. p. 72God, what a place this earth would be If that uplifting thought, Born of some vast world accident, Into our daily lives were blent, And in each action wrought. But while we let the old sins flock Back to our hearts again, In flame, and flood, and earthquake shock, Thy voice must speak to men. p. 72
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