Page 54 - Poetry-Romance

With cold ichor from the brain
Woman striving to be manlike,
Making him her enemy,
Fighting where she best had yielded’—
This was what you saw in me.

“Sir, I claim to be a woman:
Nothing less and nothing more;
Laughing when my heart is joyful,
Weeping when my heart is sore;
Loving all things good and tender,
Nor so coldly over-wise
As to scorn a lover’s kisses,
Or the light of children’s eyes.

“Over-wise! Nay, it were folly
If I cherished in my mind
One poor fancy, one ambition
That could part me from my kind—
From the maiden’s hopes and longings,
From the mother’s joy and care,
From the gladness, labour, sorrow,
That is every woman’s share.

“Not for all life’s garb of duty
In the self-same tint is dyed;
I must walk alone, another
Shelters at a husband’s side.
Yet I claim her for my sister,
While—though I must stand apart—
All her hopes, her fears, her wishes
Find an echo in my heart.

“True it is I love to study
Every page of nature’s lore.
Must that make my soul less gentle?
Nay, it softens me the more.
True it is I love the story
Of the old heroic age,
True I love the aspirations
Of the poet and the sage;

~ 52 ~