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Title: The Barren Woman
Author: Cale Young Rice [
More Titles by Rice]
(Benares)
At the burning-ghat, O Kali,
Mother divine and dread,
See, I am waiting with open lips
Over the newly dead.
I am childless and barren; pity
And let me catch the soul
Of him who here on the kindled bier
Pays to Existence toll.
See, by his guileless body
I cook the bread and eat.
Give me the soul he does not need
Now, for conception sweet.
Hear, or my lord and husband
Shall send me from his door
And take to his side a fairer bride
Whose breast shall be less poor.
Oft I have sought thy temples,
By Ganges now I seek,
Where ashes of all the dead are strewn,
And is my prayer not meek?
The ghats and the shrines and the people
That bathe in the holy Stream
Have heard my cry, O goddess high,
Shall I not have my dream?
The women of Oudh and Jaipur
Look on my face with scorn.
Children about their garments cling,
To me shall none be born?
The death-fires quiver faster,
O hasten, goddess, a sign,
That from this doom into my womb
Thy pledge has passed, divine.
Woe! there is naught but ashes,
Now, and the weepers go.
Lone on the ghat they leave me, lone,
With but the River's flow.
Kali, I ask not jewels
Nor justice, beauty nor shrift,
But for the lowest woman's right,
A child--tho I die of the gift!
[The end]
Cale Young Rice's poem: Barren Woman
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