To a Libertine [poem by Louisa Lawson]

[Editor: This poem by Louisa Lawson was published in “The Lonely Crossing” and Other Poems (1905).]

To a Libertine.

There’s blood in the ink of her writing,
The paper is stiffened with tears,
And I with my conscience am fighting,
And striving to quiet my fears.

And these are the words she is saying:
“My life I no longer can bear,
For death I am constantly praying.
Oh, when will God answer my prayer?”

* * * *

I met her when first the faint dawning
Of womanhood tinted her youth,
She then had no past, like the morning,
For she was all candour and truth.

She knelt at my feet in confession,
And asked me for leading and light;
To right, where was no retrogression,
To cleanse what was spotless and white.

She held me in deep veneration,
She looked on me almost as God,
And gave her sweet life’s conservation
Of love to the vilest that trod.

I taught her that love was the duty
And life of the angels of light,
Then spoiled her sweet spiritual beauty
And turned her away from the right.

I wooed her in delicate fashion,
Then sullied her soul with my lust;
I poisoned her life with my passion,
And murdered her beautiful trust.

And now her sweet spirit is flitting
To where other sweet spirits wait,
While I with soul-lepers am sitting
In torment at hell’s awful gate.

Source:
Louisa Lawson, “The Lonely Crossing” and Other Poems, Sydney: Dawn Office, [1905], pp. 17-18

Editor’s notes:
libertine = someone (usually a man), who unrestrainedly indulges in sensual or sexual activities without regard for moral principles (a hedonist, lecher, philanderer, playboy, profligate, rake, seducer, womaniser), someone who engages in sexual activities with many people; can also refer to a freethinker in the field of religion