d smile so the pins in his
mouth did not prick.

The eyes of Esther drew a line from these two children back to the birth
of the one that was hers. She dwelt in a world about the bright small
room like the night: in a world that roared and wailed, that reeled with
despair of her hope.

She had borne this dirty child all clean beneath her heart. Her belly
was sweet and white, it had borne her: her breasts were high and proud,
they had emptied, they had come to sag for this dirty child on the
floor--face and red lips on a floor that any shoes might step.

Had she not borne a Glory through the world, bearing this stir of
perfect flesh? Had she not borne a song through the harsh city? Had she
not borne another mite of pain, another fleck of dirt upon the city's
shame-heaps?

She lies in her bed burned in sweet pain. Pain wrings her body, wrings
her soul like the word of the Lord within lips of Deborah. Her bed with
white sheets, her bed with its pool of blood is an altar where she lays
forth her Glory which she has walking carried like a song through the
harsh city.--What have I mothered but dirt?--

A transfigured world she knows she will soon see. Yes: it is a flat of
little light--and the bugs seep in from the other flats no matter how
one cleans--it is a man of small grace, it is a world of few windows.
But her child will be borne to smite life open wide. Her child shall
leap above its father and its mother as the sun above forlorn
fields.--She arose from her bed. She held her child in her arms. She
walked through the reeling block with feet aflame. She entered the
shop.--There--squatting with feet so wide to see--her man: his needle
pressed by the selfsame finger. The world was not changed for her child.
Behold her child changing--let her sit for ever upon her seat of
tears--let her lay like fire to her breast this endless vision of her
child changing unto the world.--

--I have no voice, I have no eyes. I am a woman who has
lain with the world.
The world's voice upon my lips gave my mouth gladness.
The world's arms about my flanks gave my flesh glory.
I was big with gladness and glory.
Joyful I lost in love of my vision my eyes, in love of my
song my voice.
I have borne another misery into the world.--

Meyer Lanich moves, putting away the trousers he has patched.--O Lord,
why must I sew so many hours in order to reap my pain? Why must I work
so long, heap the hard wi