To my Mother by Voltairine De Cleyre — Read

Some souls there are which never live their life; / Some suns there are which never pierce their cloud; / Some hearts there are which cup their perfume in, / And yield no incense to the outer air.

Cloud-shrouded, flower-cupped heart: such is thine own: / So dost thou live with all thy brightness hid; / So dost thou dwell with all thy perfume close; / Rich in thy treasured wealth, aye, rich indeed --

And they are wrong who say thou "dost not feel."

But I -- I need blue air and opened bloom; / To keep my music means that it must die; / And when the thrill, the joy, the love of life is gone, / I, too, am dead -- a corpse, though not entombed.

Let me live then -- but a while -- the gloom soon comes, / The flower closes and the petals shut; / Through them the perfume slips out, like a soul --

The long, still sleep of death -- and then the Grave.

Cleveland, Ohio, March, 1889.