I am Minerva, the village poetess,

A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.In truth it pictures not my destinationBut my life.For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.And…

My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,And the village thought me a fool.Yet at the start there was a clear vision,A high and urgent purpose in my soulWhich drove me on trying to memorizeThe Encyclopedia Britannica!

For as a boy I made balloonsAnd wondrous kites and toys with clocksAnd little engines with tracks to run onAnd telephones of cans and thread.I played the cornet and painted pictures,Modeled in clay and took the partOf the villain in the ‘Octoroon.’But then at twenty-one I marriedAnd had to live, and so, to liveI learned…

Half-boy, half-madman, playing with the fire;Usurper, hoodlum, wed to his desire;Loud in the hunt–afraid albeit to beatThe wolves which reared him–always with swift feet,Booted and spurred to huddle in the mireThe malcontents, though Freedom die–no higherLaunching his truncheon; only to the streetThundering at millionaires; unlearned, though read,In human agony–surrendered upTo glory, war–of empty pomp the…

I had no words for it, exceptThat I was frightened and told my Mother;And that my Father got a pistolAnd would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy,Fifteen years old, except for his Mother.Nevertheless the story clung to me.But the man who married me, a widower of thirty-five,Was a newcomer and never heard itTill…

Fill it with mercy for our sake,And light us gently to the grave.The Goth and Vandal rendered notFor evil good –but all in vainHave we, your victors, prayed and taughtIf through you freedom bleeds again.Bound home, but blown across the seaIn earth that clings about his feet,The whinchat bears the seedling tree,And plants the sterile…