Cast me out from among you,
I will not see my child
Laid aloft where the vultures
May clamour for him, wild!
The earth you say is holy,
Not to be soiled by death,
And a Parsee still should hold divine
What Zoroaster saith.
Ay, and so I will hold it,
But see his pale sweet face,
As pure as the palest flower
Left dead in Spring's embrace.
The sun we worship daily
Shrined it for seven years,
Then shall it go to cruel beaks,
There where the sea-wind veers?
No, no, no! tho you send me
A beggar from your door,
You, my lord, whom I honour,
And you, his sisters four,
To whom there have come no children
To make your bosoms feel
How even a thought so full of throe
Can make my sick brain reel.
Ah, you are deaf? you scorn me
And loathe, as a thing defiled?
My lord, I am but a woman
Who longs to see her child
Laid in a tomb, entreasured
Under the shrouding sod.
O would I had never given birth,
Or that earth had no God!