THE RACE MOTHER
At sunrise I saw her, the woman eternal, the Race Mother;She stood upon a great, gray cliff—and behind her the forest;The dawn was on her face; over the world she looked as one seeking—As one whose eyes have watched long through shadow,And are weary still watching for one who comes not.Her mate she sought—waiting there with the forest behind her,And the world stretching wide, and the wind singing glory to daybreak.Strong and pure and clean-limbed and deep-bosomed—Goddess and woman in one—loving and longing she waited.Out from the foot of the cliff one crept up to take her;Huge-muscled, careless—o’er-borne with fierce cravings and hunger.He saw not her eyes with the passionate longing within them—Burning holy and tender with infinite love and compassion.Only the strong, sweet body he grasped—crushed and maimed—bound to serve him;Bent at his will, and distorted—till ugly and broken,Unmeet even to serve, it shambled beside him.On the breast hung a child, half-divine, half-monstrous—Maimed too, scarred, deformed—mingling strangelyThe holy dawn-dream in the deep, waiting eyes of the woman,And the careless, fierce face of the man as he fought up to take her.
It was night now, and the dawn-light was dead, and the wide world was hidden,And the wind whimpered and wailed like a creature that suffers and hopes not.