“With stylus, brush and angelot, I seize life’s pulses, fierce and hot. In Greece, a suzerain of song, The swallow was my singing mate, My lyric sisters still prolong My strain more strange than sea or fate. Though Shakespeare’s sonnets, sweet as wine, Were not more ‘sugared’ than were mine, Ye who with myrtle crown my brow, Withhold the laurel even now.” _The world’s intolerable scorn Still falls to every woman born._ “Strong to inspire, strong to please, My love was unto Pericles; The Corsican, the demigod Whose feet upon the nations trod, Shrunk from my wit as from a rod. The number and its secret train Eluded not my restless brain. Beyond the ken of man I saw, With Colon’s eyes, America. Into the heart of mystery, Of light and earth I plunged, to me The atom bared its perfect plot.” _What gifts have we, that she has not?_ “Was I not lord of life and death In Egypt and in Nineveh? Clothed with Saint Stephen’s majesty My arm dealt justice mightily. Men that beheld me caught their breath With awe. I was Elizabeth. I was the Maid of God. Mine was The sway of all the Russias. What was my guerdon, mine to take? A crown of slander, and the stake!” _How shall we comfort her, how ease The pain of thousand centuries?_ “Back from my aspiration hurled, I was the harlot of the world. The levelled walls of Troy confess My devastating loveliness. Upon my bosom burns the scar Eternal as the sexes are. I was Prince Borgia’s concubine, Phryne I was, and Messaline, And Circe, who turned men to swine.” _But shall they be forgotten, then, Whom she has turned from swine to men?_ “New creeds unto the world I gave, But my own self I could not save. For all mankind one Christ has sighed Upon the Cross, but hourly Is every woman crucified! The iron stake of destiny Is plunged into my living side. To Him that died upon the Tree Love held out trembling hands to lend Its reverential ministry, And then came Death, the kindest friend-- Shall my long road to Calvary, And man’s injustice, have no end?” _O sons of mothers, shall the pain Of all child-bearing be in vain? Shall we drive nails, to wound her thus, Into the hands that fondled us?_ THE CONQUEROR _“I, John Pierpont Morgan, ... commit my soul into the hands of my Savior, in full confidence that having redeemed and washed it in His most precious blood He will present it faultless before the throne of my Heavenly Father.”_ --_The Last Will and Testament of John Pierpont Morgan._ When all was silent and the gloom Grew thick, the dead man rose. The mask Slipped. Loath to tarry in the room, He glanced not at the agate casque; Nor at his tapestries, his scrolls, The ransom of an hundred kings-- For he that conquers life, his soul’s Wraith is not chained to mundane things.