Kathrina: A Poem

More human, more divine than we—


    In truth, half human, half divine—


Is woman, when good stars agree


    To temper with their beams benign


The hour of her nativity.


The fairest flower the green earth bears,


    Bright with the dew and light of heaven,


Is, of the double life she wears,


    The type, in grace and glory given


By soil and sun in equal shares.


True sister of the Son of Man:


    True sister of the Son of God:


What marvel that she leads the van


    Of those who in the path he trod,


Still bear the cross and wear the ban?


If God be in the sky and sea,


    And live in light and ride the storm,


Then God is God, although He be


    Enshrined within a woman's form;


And claims glad reverence from me.


So, as I worship Him in Christ,


    And in the Forms of Earth and Air,


I worship Him imparadised,


    And throned within her bosom fair


Whom vanity hath not enticed.


O! woman—mother! Woman—wife!—


    The sweetest names that language knows!


Thy breast, with holy motives rife,


    With holiest affection glows,


Thou queen, thou angel of my life!


Noble and fine in his degree


    Is the best man my heart receives;


And this my heart's supremest plea


    For him: he feels, acts, lives, believes,


And seems, and is, the likest thee.


O men! O brothers! Well I know


    That with her nature in our souls


Is born the elemental woe—


    The brutal impulse that controls,


And drives, or drags, the godlike low.


Ambition, appetite and pride—


    These throng and thrall the hearts of men


These plat the thorns, and pierce the side


    Of Him, who, in our souls again,


Is spit upon, and crucified.