To my Daughter

BRAVERIES

Once, while a famous town lay torn and burning
A woman came to childbed, and lay in labor
While all around her people cursed and screamed
In desperation, and soldiers raged insanely-
So that the child came out, the story says,
In the loud center of every horror of war;
And looking on that scene, just halfway out,
The child retreated backward, to the womb:
And chose to make those quiet walls its urn.

'Brave infant of Saguntum', a poet says-
As though to embrace a limit might show courage.
(Although the word is more like bravo, the glory
Of a great tenor, the swagger of new clothes:
The infant as a brilliant moral performer
...