Explore "The Well-Born" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
SO many people-people-in the world; / So few great souls, love ordered, well begun, / In answer to the fertile mother need! / So few who seem / The image of the Maker's mortal dream; / So many born of mere propinquity- / Of lustful habit, or of accident. / Their mothers felt / No mighty, all-compelling wish to see / Their bosoms garden-places / Abloom with flower faces; / No tidal wave swept o'er them with its flood; / No thrill of flesh or heart; no leap of blood; / No glowing fire, flaming to white desire / For mating and for motherhood: / Yet they bore children.
God! how mankind misuses Thy command, / To populate the earth! / How low is brought high birth! / How low the woman; when, inert as spawn / Left on the sands to fertilise, / She is the means through which the race goes on! / Not so the first intent. / Birth, as the Supreme Mind conceived it, meant / The clear imperious call of mate to mate / And the clear answer. Only thus and then / Are fine, well-ordered, and potential lives / Brought into being. Not by Church or State / Can birth be made legitimate, / Unless / Love in its fulness bless.