The Sabine Women
O Ravishers, O Husbands, you have won:
We are the country that is tamed by children.
Light-footed maidens now waddle behind
Bellies in which two histories quicken the future.
Tomorrow will dawn with a pang, like breaking waters.
Oh you have yoked us, yes, but you have yoked
Us to yourselves—now, see, you too are bounded
On all sides not by enemies but in-laws.
A sigh has turned the heart into a hearth:
Let marriage be a truce—for from now on
The war between us is a civil war.
A. E. Stallings
About the poet
Five Points
Vol. 14, No. 3






