Elizabeth Childers

Dust of my dust,
And dust with my dust,
O, child who died as you entered the world,
Dead with my death!
Not knowing Breath, though you tried so hard,
With a heart that beat when you lived with me,
And stopped when you left me for Life.
It is well, my child for you never traveled
The long, long way that begins with school days,
When little fingers blur under the tears
That fall on the crooked letters.

And the earliest wound, when a little mate
Leaves you alone for another
And sickness, and the face of Fear by the bed
The death of a father or mother
Or shame for them, or poverty

The maiden sorrow of school days ended
And eyeless Nature that makes you drink
From the cup of Love, though you know it's poisoned
To whom would your flower-face have been lifted?
Botanist, weakling? Cry of what blood to yours?
Pure or foul, for it makes no matter,
It's blood that calls to our blood.

And then your children-oh, what might they be?
And what your sorrow? Child! Child!
Death is better than Life.