Explore "Maternity" by Georgia Douglas Johnson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Proud?
Perhaps -- and yet / I cannot say with surety / That I am happy thus to be / Responsible for this young life's embarking.
Is he not thrall to prevalent conditions?
Does not the day loom dark apace / To weave its cordon of disgrace / Around his lifted throat?
Is not this mezzotint enough and surfeit / For such prescience?
Ah, did I dare / Recall the pulsing life I gave, / And fold him in the kindly grave!
Proud?
Perhaps -- could I but ever so faintly scan / The broad horizon of a man / Swept fair for his dominion --
So hesitant and half-afraid / I view this babe of sorrow!