Within the mansion of my memory There is a sumptuous chapel, where at times I kneel in deep devotion at the shrines Of all the blessed women I have loved. I burn for them the incense of my thoughts; Before their sacred images I lay The flowers of my purest sentiments, And on their altars piously I light The pallid candles of my vain regrets. I oft hold retrospective rendezvous Within the chapel of the loves of yore. SPRING SONG I too shall sing thy glory, Spring, Oh, season in thyself a song; In every tongue thy name doth ring With music we remember long. Fruehling! Primavera! Spring! Thy name to whisper is to sing. Why should I seek sweet melody And softly sounding words to say All that the spring-time means to me? Why should I make an effort, pray, When Fruehling! primavera! spring! To whisper only is to sing. TO A FRIEND You sigh because you are not loved. You only think you are not loved. I also sighed as you now sigh, Because I thought I was not loved. But I was loved--how I was loved! She lay awake at night and dreamed Of me, who thought I was not loved. Some loves like blooms that blush unseen, Remain unknown and unconfessed, And we oftimes are best beloved When loved with love in silence shrined. So be not sad, dear friend, nor sigh, But feel assured there is a heart In this wide world that beats for you. I SAW THREE NUNS I saw three nuns go by the other day: Three upright coffins slowly gliding by. Funereal, black and chilling to behold, The ghastly shadows of a defunct past. The worms of ignorance and superstition Give to these dead, the semblances of life. The past has not yet buried all its dead. I saw three nuns go by the other day: Three upright coffins slowly gliding by. A WOMAN LOVES ME A woman loves me! 'Tis not of her I sing whose womb has been The primal cradle of my tender self; I mean not mother-love. A woman loves me! 'Tis not of her I sing who also sprang From that same source whence also I have sprung; I mean not sister-love. A woman loves me! I sing of her who "from the mobs of life" Has chosen me as him to whom alone She will unlock her body and her soul To welcome all my love. ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN (The Workers' Jeanne d'Arc) She too a vision had and voices heard: She heard the groans of slaving, starving workers: She had a vision of their liberation. She also mounted steed and armor donned. The soap-box or the platform is her steed. Her coat of mail defiance of the powers. She too to victory an army leads. Her army is the risen proletariat, In arms against their pitiless exploiters.