Elizabeth Childers

Dust of my dust,
 And dust with my dust,
 O, child who died as you entered the world,
 Dead with my death!
 Not knowing Breath, though you tried so hard,
 With a heart that beat when you lived with me,
 And stopped when you left me for Life.
 It is well, my child for you never traveled
 The long, long way that begins with school days,
 When little fingers blur under the tears
 That fall on the crooked letters.
 And the earliest wound, when a little mate
 Leaves you alone for another
 And sickness, and the face of Fear by the bed
 The death of a father or mother
 Or shame for them, or poverty
 The maiden sorrow of school days ended
 And eyeless Nature that makes you drink
 From the cup of Love, though you know it's poisoned
 To whom would your flower-face have been lifted?
 Botanist, weakling? Cry of what blood to yours?
 Pure or foul, for it makes no matter,
 It's blood that calls to our blood.
 And then your children-oh, what might they be?
 And what your sorrow? Child! Child!
 Death is better than Life.