  Out of the fog-banks dank and yellow, As I groped like a soul alone, The shadow lurched of a drunken fellow, Blasphemous, ragged, and then was gone. Swift the shape of a stranger-woman— Soft-shod maidenhood? draggled quean? Only I know it was something human— Passed, and was as it had not been. ClaspÈd lovers with footfall muffled Faded by ere I caught their bloom, Whimpering urchins unmothered shuffled Up from the desolate murky womb. Shadows on shadows the lone way haunted Where one shadow the more, I stole, Each with a soul I must take for granted— But how to be aware of the soul? Just the shapes of my fellow-creatures, Dim and fitful as ghosts at dawn, Lacking the life-pulse, void of features, Self-encompassed, adrift, withdrawn. Sisters! brothers! remote procession! I would love and be loved of you, Give myself for your whole possession, Take yourselves as my human due:— But my steps were as yours made noiseless That none may know how we go and come:— But you were all created voiceless Even as I was fashioned dumb. Each in his fogbound isolation Who shall know how the other yearns? Till some flash of a new Creation Through this smoke with a clear flame burns, And the world is man's for resistless brotherhood Of hands grown warm and of shining brows, And the world is woman's for mighty motherhood, |
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