Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PARENTAGE, by ALICE MEYNELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PARENTAGE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ah no! Not these!
Last Line: And she who slays is she who bears, who bears.
Alternate Author Name(s): Meynell, Wilfrid, Mrs.; Thompson, Alice Christina
Subject(s): Childlessness


Ah no! not these!
Those, who were childless, are not they who gave
So many dead unto the journeying wave,
The helpless nurslings of thy cradling seas;
Not they who doomed by infallible decrees
Unnumbered man to the innumerable grave.

But those who slay
Are fathers. Theirs are armies. Death is theirs --
The death of innocences and despairs;
The dying of the golden and the gray.
The sentence, when these speak it, has no Nay.
And she who slays is she who bears, who bears.





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