180 . The Mother

IN the sorrow and the terror of the nations,

In a world shaken through by lamentations,

Shall I dare know happiness

That I stitch a baby’s dress?

So: for I shall be a mother with the mothers,

I shall know the mother’s anguish like the others,

Present joy must surely start

For the life beneath my heart.

Gods and men, ye know a woman’s glad unreason,

How she cannot bend and weep but in her season,

Let my hours with rapture glow

As the seams and stitches grow.

And I cannot hear the word of fire and slaughter;

Do men die? Then live, my child, my son, my daughter!

Into realms of pain I bring

You for joy’s own offering.