THERE is a woman like a seed,
There is a man in embryo,
Whose spirits, faces, sex indeed
Their very mothers do not know.
Only their being is revealed,
They are: all else is hidden in gloom,
Fixed by authority, but sealed
Deep in the future and the womb.
Yet they are foreordained to be
One female, and other male,
And they will come the light to see,
And suck, and bite their fist, and wail,
And grow through childhood wondering still
At all the beauties of the earth,
And learn the exercise of will,
Mercy and truth and tears and mirth.
Season of youth! they’ll live with joy
Through all our careless days of old,
But leave behind the girl and boy
Their dearest secrets still untold.
Separate still, they will not meet,
Though life be light, unsatisfied;
Not finding any, wise or sweet,
The born companions of thier pride:
Till destiny disguised as chance
Pricks out the hour with silver pin,
Decrees a dinner or a dance,
A house, a garden, or an inn.
Where they’ll be left alone a space,
Strangers, and talk; and she will find
Him like herself, and he her face
The language of a perfect mind.
And once again with all the rest
They’ll come together, and friends depart,
Congenuality confessed,
Each with a trouble at the heart.
And yet once more and they will know
A final wound: they are struck by love,
The god at last has drawn his bow,
And sent a shaft that will not move:
And he a whole night long will wake
Abased and helpless framing speech,
Made desperate by his heart’s fierce ache
To ask a thing beyond his reach.
And she all trembling in her bed
Will search his strangeness, yearn and weep,
Loving him, filled with virgin dread,
And see the dawn, and find no sleep.
And pressed by thunder they will rise,
And when a few more hours have gone,
Her burning cheek and languid eyes,
Will tell him all his war is won.
Ah, but I know their months of bliss,
Their happy silence, happy talk;
How they will roam and pause and kiss,
Confess, discover, while they walk;
How they will stand by stream and lake,
And go, as though exchanging sight,
Through bluebell wood and primrose brake
Finding in all a new delight.
And watch the sunset from a gate,
And see the evening fade, and then
All of a sudden learn to hate
The evil that is done by men —
So they will mate, and they will get
A wondrous child, and several more,
The prettiest, strongest, gayest set
That mortal mother ever bore.
And love to watch this brood of theirs
Grow up, though they grow older too,
And laugh to find their first grey hairs
Since there is nothing else to do.
Each thought you guard, each pulse of mine
Will wake in them, but they not guess
We shared of old the immortal wine
Of their delight and their distress,
Who beyond question, also were
Wisest of all the race of Man,
One only comprehending pair,
Unique, since first the world began.
(John Collings Squire)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Man Poems, God Poems, World Poems, Light Poems, Mind Poems, Sadness Poems, War & Peace Poems, Faces Poems, Youth Poems, Sense & Perception PoemsBased on Keywords: thier, foreordained