The Mother

IN the sorrow and the terror of the nations,   
In a world shaken through by lamentations,   
 Shall I dare know happiness   
 That I stitch a baby’s dress?   
  
So: for I shall be a mother with the mothers,           
I shall know the mother’s anguish like the others,   
 Present joy must surely start   
 For the life beneath my heart.   
  
Gods and men, ye know a woman’s glad unreason,   
How she cannot bend and weep but in her season,           
 Let my hours with rapture glow   
 As the seams and stitches grow.   
  
And I cannot hear the word of fire and slaughter;   
Do men die? Then live, my child, my son, my daughter!   
 Into realms of pain I bring           
 You for joy’s own offering.