SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA
Written for Strephon, who said that a woman must lean or she should not have his chivalry.
THE light young man who was to die,
Stopped in his frolic by the State,
Aghast, beheld the world go by;
But Catherine crossed his dungeon gate.
She found his lyric courage dumb,
His stripling beauties strewn in wrecks,
His modish bravery overcome;
Small profit had he of his sex.
On any old wife's level he,
For once—for all. But he alone—
Man—must not fear the mystery,
The pang, the passage, the unknown:
Death. He did fear it, in his cell,
Darkling amid the Tuscan sun;
And, weeping, at her feet he fell,
The sacred, young, provincial nun.
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