We are such foolish women at the heart,
I saw one pull the petals from a rose,
And smiling like a baby in its dreams,
She named the petals, dropping each apart.
Some of us are priestesses and seers,
And some of us have followed primrose ways,
Some bear dead children that they can't forget,
And some bear living sorrow all their days.
Some of us, gaunt Hagars, have gone forth,
And founded empires in a desert land,
And after us, in days of flippant ease,
One has destroyed it with a dainty hand.
Not one, not one, escapes the fated dart,
A gray-haired school-ma'am counting apple seeds
From queens of Sheba to the Nubian slaves,
All, all, are foolish women at the heart.
