Classic Poem

Birth is a pure as Death is pure.
They are one.
Who questions the right to die?
Who shall question the right to be born?
Was ever a child begotten impure,
Or was ever a baby born wicked?
I will not sing the ecstacy of the birth-pang:
That is a revelation unto mothers alone.
Who is so infinite as to dare to judge motherhood?
I myself wait outside the temple, sitting on the steps;
My head bowed to earth — or uplifted to the stars.
Nor will I voice the nobility of Motherhood
Till all motherhood be noble as Life itself.
Till all motherhood be free as death itself.
In the name of the Great Unknown, who is there
That dares to judge between one motherhood and another?
Between one wave and another;
Pouring their salty cataracts upon a trembling shore?
Shall a gowned priest judge?
Or a spectacled clerk deliver a license to love?
I will sing a song of Bastards:
Free children of free mothers.
O, noble company of bastards,
Beloved of the Great Mother;
Her petted children, born of her own desire.
She has given you the stars for playthings
And the winds for messengers bringing you offerings;
She has said to the Sun, " These are your brothers; "
And to the Moon, " These are your sisters. "
Before birth she lay with you in your dark cradle
And sang you the song of her sanctuaries.
She has dangled before your eyes pictures
Of a world undiscovered by others.
For you she has woven wreaths of bay
And crowns of laurel.
She has not held back the mystery
Of your creation till Authority gave consent;
Nor delayed the hour of your coming
For the incantation of a church.
She has not branded " Bastard " on your soft palms,
Nor on the pink soles of your little feet.
She is ignorant and indifferent
That you are baby breakers of man's Law.
And you are indifferent.
She laughs scornfully at the laws of Priests and Rulers.
She has set her own brand upon your souls,
And has given you place in a glorious company:
Poets, musicians, painters, declarers of knowledge;
Governors and captains, seers and conquerors;
William the Bastard, of Normandy,
Alexander Hamilton, D'Alembert, Leonardo,
And the Great Deliverer, standing alone,
Sad, silent, rugged, a storm-beaten spruce
On a seaward cliff; melancholy; misunderstood;
Tenderly patient.

Birth, elder sister to Death — taking the first step
Toward the infinite; link between the future and the past.
A tall and beautiful angel holding in her hands
A great gift — consciousness.
Behind her, as her shadow, tall and beautiful,
Her sister, Death, holding dreamily
The great gift oblivion.
Bearing between them the unknown,
Forgotten — save by the cosmic blood,
The unknown future; visioned only by the cosmic soul.
Birth and Death — twin sisters of the dawn
And of the evening.
Their wings shine diaphanous against the sky
And on their heads rest pale stars.
Together they bring hope of a time when
Man shall live as perfectly in his orbit by cosmic law
As the stars move in their celestial paths —
Nor ever stumble.
Birth — Earth's purest purity;
Echo of eternity;
The first and latest note in Nature's passional.