Angels and Women (1924)

such times father is stern and sad, Aldeth
sighs, they chide my youthful gayety, and
I am oppressed with gloom.
These moods of my parents are mysterious,
connected, I imagine, with the remembrance
of their former life, but I have
never presumed to question them. Today I
accidentally received an intimation confirming
this supposition, but still I am perplexed.
While tying the vines beneath my mother’s
window, I heard her say (forgetting perhaps,
that I was near)--
"This is Aloma’s birthday; how beautiful
she is growing 1"
I was greatly surprised, but still more so
when my father groaned and answered:
"Would to God she were deformed I Woman,
why art thou made so fair l O fatal, fatal
gift of beauty l but for it how lovely and
pure thou art! The earth would not now
be the theatre of unimaginable sin, nor
would Satanas 1 and his wicked peers control
1 See Appendix, Note 3.