The Silent Tragedy

The deepest tragedies of life are not     Put into books, or acted on the stage.     Nay, they are lived in silence, by tense hearts     In homes, among dull unperceiving kin,     And thoughtless friends, who make a whip of words     Wherewith to lash these hearts, and call it wit.     There is a tragedy lived everywhere     In Christian lands, by an increasing horde     Of women martyrs to our social laws.     Women whose hearts cry out for motherhood;     Women whose bosoms ache for little heads;     Women God meant for mothers, but whose lives     Have been restrained, restricted, and denied     Their natural channels, till at last they stand     Unmated and alone, by that sad sea     Whose slow receding tide returns no more.     Men meet great sorrows; but no man can grasp     The depth, and height, of such a grief as this.     The call of Fatherhood is from man's brain.     Man cannot know the answer to that call     Save as a woman tells him.    But to her     The call of Motherhood is from the soul,     The brain, the body.    She is like a plant     Which buds and blossoms only to bear fruit.     Man is the pollen, carried by the wind     Of accident, or impulse, or desire;     And then his role of fatherhood is played.     Her threefold knowledge of maternity,     Through three times three great months, is hers alone.     Man as an egotist is wounded when     He is not father.    Woman when denied     The all-embracing role of motherhood     Rebels with her whole being.    Oftentimes     Rebellion finds its only utterance     In shattered nerves, and lack of self-control;     Which gives the merry world its chance to cry     'Old maids are queer.'          In far off Eastern lands     They think of God as Mother to the race;     Father and Mother of the Universe.     And mayhap this is why they make their girls     Wives prematurely, mothers over young,     Hoping to please their Mother God this way.     Since everywhere in Nature sex is shown     For procreative uses, they contend     Sterility is sinful.    (Save when one     Chooses a life of Saintship here on earth,     And so conserves all forces to that end.)     Here in the West, our God is Masculine;     And while we say He bade a Virgin bring     His Son to birth, we think of Him as One     Placing false values on forced continence -     Preparing heavens for those who live that life -     And hells for those who stray by thought or act     From the unnatural path our laws have made.     Mother of Christ, thou being woman, thou     Knowing all depths within the woman heart,     All joy, all pain, oh send the world more light.     Enlarge our sympathies; and let our minds     Turn from achievements of material things     To contemplation of Eternal truths.     Space throbs with egos, waiting for rebirth;     And mother-hearted women fill the earth.     Mother of Christ, show us the way to thin     The ranks of childless women, without sin.