esire,
When with its might it cries and prays?

In my unconscious veins there runs
Perchance, some old ancestral taint;
In Eve _I_ sinned: poor Eve and I!
We each may utter one complaint:--

One and the same--for knowledge came
Too late to save _her_ paradise;
And I my paradise have lost;
Forsooth because _I_ am not wise.

O vain traditions! small the aid
We women gather from your lore:
Why, when the world was lost, did death
Not come our children's birth before?

It had been better to have died,
Sole prey of death, and ended so;
Than to have dragged through endless time,
One long, unbroken trail of woe.

To suffer, yet not expiate;
To die at last, yet not atone;
To mourn our heirship to a guilt,
Erased by innocent blood alone!

You lift your hands in shocked surprise;
You say enough I have not prayed:
Can prayer go back through centuries,
And change the web of fate one braid?

Nay, own the truth, and say that we
Are but the bonded slaves of doom;
Unconscious to the cradle came,
Unwilling must go to the tomb.

Your woman's hands are void of help,
Though my soul should be stung to death;
Could I avert one pang from you,
Imploring with my latest breath?

And men!--we suffer any wrong
That men, or mad, or blind, may do;--
Let me alone in my despair!
There is no help for me or you.

I wait to find the meaning out
That lies beyond the bitter end;
Comfort yourself with 'wearying heaven,
I ask no comfort, oh my friend!

MOONLIGHT MEMORIES.

Do thy chamber windows open east,
Beloved, as did ours of old?
And do you stand when day has ceased,
Withdrawn thro' evening's porch of gold,
And watch the pink flush fade above
The hills on which the wan moon leans,
Remembering the sweet girlish love
That blest this hour in other scenes!

I see your hand upon your heart--
I see you dash away the tears--
It is the same undying smart,
That touched us in the long-gone years;
And cannot pass away. You stand
Your forehead to the window crest,
And stifle sobs that no command
Can keep from rising in your breast.

Dear, balm is not for griefs like ours,
Nor resurrection for dead hope:
In vain we cover wounds w