Read "On the Beach" by Edwina Stanton Babcock online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
She sat in her gleaming robes / With the two hard-shining globes / Of her soul-less eyes, stare-fixed, / And said: "It is mine to know / How far he may come and go; / Mine to make him dance and sing, / His heart and his money fling / Away. He is mine to take, / And play with and bend and break; / The better for him I think. / We are put here to try each other. / Is he strong? He will not sink."
The other woman pulled / The thin shawl over her head. / "If he is strong? " she murmured / "If he is strong," you said. / "But are we strong? " It is ours / To spare, to shield, to tend; / It is his to be hurt and broken, / To struggle and to fend. / It is equal, therefore we suffer. / (He suffers most, I think.) / We are put here to help each other. / Are we strong? He will not sink. "