When I am dead and Sister to the Dust. [Elsa Barker]

When I am dead and sister to the dust; When no more avidly I drink the wine Of human love; when the pale Proserpine Has covered me with poppies, and cold rust Has cut my lyre-strings, and the sun has thrust Me underground to nourish the world-vine, -- Men shall discover these old songs of mine, And say: This woman lived -- as poets must!

This woman lived and wore life as a sword To conquer wisdom; this dead woman read In the sealed Book of Love and underscored The meanings. Then the sails of faith she spread, And faring out for regions unexplored, Went singing down the River of the Dead.