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Kathrina: A Poem

9781465649362
108 pages
Library of Alexandria
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Overview
More human, more divine than we—
In truth, half human, half divine—
Is woman, when good stars agree
 To temper with their beams benign
 The hour of her nativity.
 The fairest flower the green earth bears,
 Bright with the dew and light of heaven,
 Is, of the double life she wears,
 The type, in grace and glory given
 By soil and sun in equal shares.
 True sister of the Son of Man:
 True sister of the Son of God:
 What marvel that she leads the van
 Of those who in the path he trod,
 Still bear the cross and wear the ban?
 If God be in the sky and sea,
 And live in light and ride the storm,
 Then God is God, although He be
 Enshrined within a woman's form;
 And claims glad reverence from me.
 So, as I worship Him in Christ,
 And in the Forms of Earth and Air,
 I worship Him imparadised,
 And throned within her bosom fair
 Whom vanity hath not enticed.
 O! woman—mother! Woman—wife!—
The sweetest names that language knows!
 Thy breast, with holy motives rife,
 With holiest affection glows,
 Thou queen, thou angel of my life!
 Noble and fine in his degree
 Is the best man my heart receives;
 And this my heart's supremest plea
 For him: he feels, acts, lives, believes,
 And seems, and is, the likest thee.
 O men! O brothers! Well I know
 That with her nature in our souls
 Is born the elemental woe—
The brutal impulse that controls,
 And drives, or drags, the godlike low.
 Ambition, appetite and pride—
These throng and thrall the hearts of men
 These plat the thorns, and pierce the side
 Of Him, who, in our souls again,
 Is spit upon, and crucified.

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