THE SLOW EMERGER

I am the Slow Emerger: Patience and wait for me, Nor be afraid that I will fail you— You holder of fair morning heights— You dancing with the rosy dawn!

It has been long and hard for me, This task of slow emergence from the clod. Brute-shapes still prowl about me in the shadows, Their fangs are sometimes fastened to my feet; So that I cannot walk from pain of them, So that I halt and cry out—lonely in the night!

Sometimes I see you, Woman— You the watchful, waiting one of ages— You with the dawn and godlike— You past all torment that I know— You the understanding.

Sometimes I see you in a shaft of light Smiting the mists of valleys where I call, Dividing them as with a two-edged sword Swung by an angel! In that vision Rage of tusk and tooth and fang Falls like the waves in their wind-drifted foam Upon the scarlet laughter of wild poppies!

I have deceived you; You in turn have punished me— Have punished me with a mere semblance of yourself: A figure, rose-lipped, white fleshed, With wild witcheries of ample breasts— Limbs smooth and dimpled as for kisses— A dear and tender fiction of yourself; A fiction of yourself that did escape me, Leaped up to claim those hills remote from me Until I learned man must not chain a woman's soul!

O Woman, wait for me— Be patient; for I strive Out of the shadow Where the brute Still fastens with his fang My bleeding feet— My weary, stumbling feet: Nor be afraid that I will fail you— You holder of far morning heights— You dancing with the dawn!