| A Father of Women |
| Ad Sororem E.B. |
“Thy father was transused into they blood.”
Dryden: Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew. |
| |
Our father works in us,
The daughters of his manhood. Not undone
Is he, not wasted, though transmuted thus,
And though he left no son.
|
| |
Therefore on him I cry
To arm me: “For my delicate mind a casque,
A breastplate for my heart, courage to die,
Of thee, captain, I ask.
|
| |
“Nor strengthen only; press
A finger on this violent blood and pale,
Over this rash will let thy tenderness
A while pause, and prevail.
|
| |
“And shepherd-father, thou
Whose staff folded my thoughts before my birth,
Control them now I am of earth, and now
Thou art no more of earth.
|
| |
“O liberal, constant, dear,
Crush in my nature the ungenerous art
Of the inferior; set me high, and here,
Here garner up thy heart!”
|
| |
Like to him now are they,
The million living fathers of the War—
Mourning the crippled world, the bitter day—
Whose striplings are no more.
|
| |
The crippled world! Come then,
Fathers of women with your honour in trust;
Approve, accept, know them daughters of men,
Now that your sons are dust.
|