Trails Sunward/A Mother's Cry to Her Kind

A MOTHER'S CRY TO HER KIND

At a hovel window hot and bare,
A baby on her breast,
And hungry others fretting the air
That fetid scents obsessed,
A mother bitter and bent with want
Stared at a squalid street,
And said to herself—and to her kind—
With sickening repeat:

"Don't ever have a child,
If you are married poor.
Don't ever have a little child
And make your misery sure.
For two will come, and three, and four,
To eat one crust of bread:
And grind as you will in poverty mill
You'll wish that you were dead.

"Don't ever have a child,
If you must cook and scrub
And wash your soul, all day long,
Into the clothes you rub.
For the sight of children bred in want,
The cry of their distress,
Will make you long to be but a beast
Out in the wilderness.

"Don't ever have a child.
In winter there is cold,
In summer there is fever and death—
And a face laid in the mold.
And then another—coming to fill
Its sallow hungry place,
And suck at your breast and drain the life
And hope out of your face.

"Don't ever have a child.
Your husband, down and dumb,
Will take to drink, and, out of work,
Win you a beggar's crumb.
Or beat you—till a cancer grows
Where once you had a breast,
And your days will be a bitterness,
And your nights will be unrest.

"Don't ever have a child.
Leave children to the rich,
And eat your lonely bread for strength
To rise out of the ditch.
For do not think the proud and strong
Believe you grovel there
For any reason than that worth
Has justice everywhere.

"Don't ever have a child.
Don't set God's image on
A wizened sickly face that death
Or crime shall hold in pawn.
For almshouse door and prison cell
Are made for children who
Are born—in beds of poverty—
Of such as me and you."