I am but a common handmaiden flung,

Out into the desert as any other waste,

Along with my child-my son,

My kisses now bitter to the taste,

My useless eyes too dark to look upon,

The holy God face to face,

Too dark to dare in slience rise,

In pleading toward the white hot skies,

To ask for the sake of my young,

Child, a drop of water, no not one!

My kisses now sandy against the mouth,

Against heaven and earth and any man,

I wept for rain to fill my thirsting mouth,

But got only black substances bubbling,

Up from the white sand.

O I must stop my struggling,

And be content to die,

How better dead than this shameful thing,

That perhaps is deserving now to die,

Limped eyed and souless?...