Poems by Themis

Child of our Heart

Child of our heart, so beautiful, so bright,

With angel radiances bedecked so fair,

Flowers on your brow and stars within your hair,

What do you do in these black streets of night?

— These sunless cities reeking bale and blight,

Where houses breathe a foul and fetid air,

And bodies flaccid, cold, exhale despair,

Fester with putrid thought and crooked spite.

O lovely child, most beautiful, you roam

Joyous among these slums, these flabby hags,

Untouched — pure sun-drop, snow-drop,

honey-sweet;

Nor fear, nor weep, though strayed so far from home,

For you are Love, and in their midnight rags

All dark things know you, bend, and kiss

your feet.

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