Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WHITE IRIS, by JANET B. MONTGOMERY MCGOVERN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WHITE IRIS, by                    
First Line: When my lord condemned her to death
Last Line: Women are braver creatures now.
Subject(s): Courage; Daughters; Pain; Women; Valor; Bravery; Suffering; Misery


WHEN my lord condemned her to death
He was right by the law of his people
And of mine; and, by the custom of our land.
That custom she had broken.
Her father's will, which should be a daughter's law,
She had defied. She had loved where she would;
Not wed where her father willed.
She had forgotten she was a nobleman's daughter—
Yet my lord was generous; she was our only child—
A son had been denied us—He loved her,
So he forbore to make of her a spectacle;
A thing of ridicule, an outcast from her father's house.
And though it was due his people—long-dead ancestors
And those still living—that she must die—
For she had not given herself for gold
To help father or brothers—
That my lord would have accounted virtue.
But "for her own sinful pleasure;
That which she called loving—
As if a noblewoman of our ancient race
Might love by choice of her own,
Like a dancing-girl or the base-born—
Might wed at the bidding of love, not at that of her father;
As if for a noblewoman there could be other law
Than the law of duty; and that law she had broken"—
Thus spoke my lord, her father. Yet he was generous;
He granted her death by her own hand.
Generously, too, he allowed her the choice of weapons.
And she chose—as ever bravely—the dagger;
No weakling death of water or of sleeping-draught.

Not for this, though, do I heap white iris-buds
Among the purple, with which my lord's sisters
Have covered her little body—
But rather that she had the higher courage,
Knowing the penalty she must pay,
To love where she would—
Her father having commanded marriage with another—
And having loved—and given—
To go to her father, telling him all;
Not with tears and broken pleas for forgiveness;
But proudly, with head held high and shining eyes.
"Do with me what thou wilt," she said.
"I have known heaven; a life-time of earth
Would but soil my happiness. Nor will I ever suffer the touch,
Be it but that of finger tip, of another man"—
Had I but had this courage twenty years ago!
Women are braver creatures now.





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