A MOTHER'S CRY TO HER KIND
At a hovel window hot and bare,A baby on her breast,And hungry others fretting the airThat fetid scents obsessed,A mother bitter and bent with wantStared 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 childAnd 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 millYou'll wish that you were dead.
"Don't ever have a child,If you must cook and scrubAnd 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 beastOut 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 fillIts sallow hungry place,And suck at your breast and drain the lifeAnd 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 growsWhere 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 strengthTo rise out of the ditch.For do not think the proud and strongBelieve you grovel thereFor any reason than that worthHas justice everywhere.
"Don't ever have a child.Don't set God's image on A wizened sickly face that deathOr crime shall hold in pawn.For almshouse door and prison cellAre made for children whoAre born—in beds of poverty—Of such as me and you."