{"label":"Reflective","method":"Keyword matching of feed headlines, not AI or a factual assessment of world sentiment.","scores":[{"label":"Reflective","score":1},{"label":"Hopeful","score":0},{"label":"Uncertain","score":0},{"label":"Curious","score":0}],"poem":{"id":"871F2FBD-4719-569E-95C0-A7A2E0191255","title":"The Forsaken","content":"Holy Mother of God, Merciful Mary.  Hear me!  I am very weary.  I have come\nfrom a village miles away, all day I have been coming, and I ache for such\nfar roaming.  I cannot walk as light as I used, and my thoughts grow confused.\nI am heavier than I was.  Mary Mother, you know the cause!\n\nBeautiful Holy Lady, take my shame away from me!  Let this fear\nbe only seeming, let it be that I am dreaming.  For months I have hoped\nit was so, now I am afraid I know.  Lady, why should this be shame,\njust because I haven't got his name.  He loved me, yes, Lady, he did,\nand he couldn't keep it hid.  We meant to marry.  Why did he die?\n\nThat day when they told me he had gone down in the avalanche, and could not\nbe found until the snow melted in Spring, I did nothing.  I could not cry.\nWhy should he die?  Why should he die and his child live?  His little child\nalive in me, for my comfort.  No, Good God, for my misery!  I cannot face\nthe shame, to be a mother, and not married, and the poor child to be reviled\nfor having no father.  Merciful Mother, Holy Virgin, take away this sin I did.\nLet the baby not be.  Only take the stigma off of me!\n\nI have told no one but you, Holy Mary.  My mother would call me \"whore\",\nand spit upon me; the priest would have me repent, and have\nthe rest of my life spent in a convent.  I am no whore, no bad woman,\nhe loved me, and we were to be married.  I carried him always in my heart,\nwhat did it matter if I gave him the least part of me too?  You were a virgin,\nHoly Mother, but you had a son, you know there are times when a woman\nmust give all.  There is some call to give and hold back nothing.\nI swear I obeyed God then, and this child who lives in me is the sign.\nWhat am I saying?  He is dead, my beautiful, strong man!  I shall never\nfeel him caress me again.  This is the only baby I shall have.\nOh, Holy Virgin, protect my baby!  My little, helpless baby!\n\nHe will look like his father, and he will be as fast a runner and as good\na shot.  Not that he shall be no scholar neither.  He shall go to school\nin winter, and learn to read and write, and my father will teach him to carve,\nso that he can make the little horses, and cows, and chamois,\nout of white wood.  Oh, No!  No!  No!  How can I think such things,\nI am not good.  My father will have nothing to do with my boy,\nI shall be an outcast thing.  Oh, Mother of our Lord God, be merciful,\ntake away my shame!  Let my body be as it was before he came.\nNo little baby for me to keep underneath my heart for those long months.\nTo live for and to get comfort from.  I cannot go home and tell my mother.\nShe is so hard and righteous.  She never loved my father, and we were born\nfor duty, not for love.  I cannot face it.  Holy Mother, take my baby away!\nTake away my little baby!  I don't want it, I can't bear it!\n\nAnd I shall have nothing, nothing!  Just be known as a good girl.\nHave other men want to marry me, whom I could not touch, after having known\nmy man.  Known the length and breadth of his beautiful white body,\nand the depth of his love, on the high Summer Alp, with the moon above,\nand the pine-needles all shiny in the light of it.  He is gone, my man,\nI shall never hear him or feel him again, but I could not touch another.\nI would rather lie under the snow with my own man in my arms!\n\nSo I shall live on and on.  Just a good woman.  With nothing to warm my heart\nwhere he lay, and where he left his baby for me to care for.  I shall not be\nquite human, I think.  Merely a stone-dead creature.  They will respect me.\nWhat do I care for respect!  You didn't care for people's tongues\nwhen you were carrying our Lord Jesus.  God had my man give me my baby,\nwhen He knew that He was going to take him away.  His lips will comfort me,\nhis hands will soothe me.  All day I will work at my lace-making,\nand all night I will keep him warm by my side and pray the blessed Angels\nto cover him with their wings.  Dear Mother, what is it that sings?\nI hear voices singing, and lovely silver trumpets through it all.  They seem\njust on the other side of the wall.  Let me keep my baby, Holy Mother.\nHe is only a poor lace-maker's baby, with a stain upon him,\nbut give me strength to bring him up to be a man.","author":"Amy Lowell","source":"api","sourceName":"Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914) · Project Gutenberg","sourceURL":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1020/pg1020-images.html#link2H_4_0049","rightsNotice":"Public domain in the United States.","rightsURL":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","publicationYear":1914},"articleCount":25,"fetchedAt":"2026-11-08T05:05:00.518Z"}