“Harriet’s right and Harriet’s upstairs, And Harriet cried like this when she gave birth, Eighteen years back, in that chintz-curtained room, And her long cry ran like an icicle Into my veins. I can remember yet The terrible old woman with the shawl Who sat beside me, like deserted Fate, Cursing me with those eyes each time she cried, Although she must, one time, have cried like that And been the object of as wild a cry, And so far back⁠—and on⁠—and always that, The linked, the agonizing chain of cries Brighter than steel, because earth will be earth And the sun strike it, and the seed have force. And yet no cry has touched me like this cry.

Harriet’s right and Harriet’s upstairs And Harriet would have kept her from today, And now today has come, I look at it, Under the icicle, and wish it gone, Because it hurts me to be sitting here, Biting my fingers at my daughter’s cry And knowing Harriet has the harder task As she has had for nearly twenty years.