When the drinking-place was closed, we walked along the dark street. Do you remember? We were four, luckily, and the old man was kept busy in conversation, half drunken as he was. And we, with our secret between us, walked behind. Our hands were tight clasped in the folds of our dress. Tight clasped with the clinging hand caress; you and I trying to put into our hands all the longing that was in us. All the time we were apprehensive of a sudden turning of the old man or the other ... Then, the whispered troth, and the meeting-place appointed. And, then, later, boldly, so openly and audaciously it brought no suspicion, Under seeming of wine-induced jollity, we kissed. And they laughed; it seemed a trivial jest to them. But to us it was a sacrament. But, best of all, my beloved, was the hurried clasping and kissing when we were alone in the dark. Promise of joy to come. Foretaste of the coming ecstasy. And then we had to part. I and my unaware friend. You and the old man. As I walked home that night, How I hated him! How I looked up at the pale-golden moon high-hung in the purple sky, and sang in my heart your praise and cursed in my heart your possessor ... But we will out-wit him. Young I am and young are you and the Law of Life bids us mate. And a whole world standing between us would be melted and destroyed by the fire of our youth's desire. THE GLORIOUS ADVENTURE OF GLORIOUS ME I swim with the tide of life towards the new; I reach out hungered arms to flowing change.-- I smash the awesome totems of my kind; My smarting vision bursts its cramping range. A thousand voices yell within my soul; A thousand hymns are chanting in my heart.-- I blast the mist of worlds and years apart; I sense the blending glory of the whole. The sap of flowers and trees, it mounts in me. I feel the child within me cry and turn; The crimson thoughts within me writhe and burn.-- I stand, with craving arms high-flung, before the rimless sea. And every whirling, passionate star sings melodies to Me; And every bud and every leaf has sought my private ear; And to the quickening soul of Me has told its mystery, As I sit in state in the heart of the world, As I proudly hug the core of the world, As I make me a boat of the whole, wide world ... And then for new worlds steer. THE RENAISSANCE OF PARENTHOOD MARGARET C. ANDERSON