Beauty and hardship, bent and bound
Under the selfsame yoke:
Babies with bare knees plump and round
And stooping women folk.
MARIE LOUISE HERSEY
WREATHS
RED wreaths
Hang in my neighbor's window,
Green wreaths in my own.
On this day I lost my husband.
On this day you lost your boy.
On this day
Christ was born.
Red wreaths,
Green wreaths
Hang in Our Windows
Red for a bleeding heart,
Green for grave grass.
Mary, mother of Jesus,
Look down and comfort us.
You too knew passion;
You too knew pain.
Comfort us,
Who are not brides of God,
Nor bore God.
On Christmas day
Hang wreaths,
Red for new pain.
Green for spent passion.
CAROLYN HILLMAN
MEMPHIS
WHY should I sing of my present? It is noth-
ing to me or you,
Rather I'd dream of Dixie and tie ships on the old
bayou!
Rather I'd dream of my packets and the lazy river
days,
Rather I'd dream of my levee and the crimson sunset
haze,
Rather I'd dream of my triumphs, of the days that
are long gone by,
Rather I'd dream of flame-tipped stacks against a
saffron sky,
Of level lawns of topaz, of level fields of jade,
Of the rambling pillared mansions that my fathers'
fathers made!
Why should I sing of my present? It is nothing
to you or me,
But the river road, the great road, the high road to
the sea!
Aye, that is worth the dreaming, aye, that was
worth the pain.
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