Let Me Read Seneca

LET me read Seneca and learn again
The Roman manner in the face of death.
Here is the Stoic anodyne for pain
Sharp as the wind’s edge or the indrawn breath
Of a hurt child that sees all manhood gone
With flooding memory of the thing denied.
This is the road all men have journeyed on
From Socrates to Jesus crucified.

But I am woman, of no heroic mould.
Marcus Aurelius is a weary land,
And Bernard’s love of God has left me cold
With passionless fear, who would have laid my hand
For comfort on the desolate bright head
Of Lucrece weeping on her marriage bed.