WOMAN TO MAN. "Woman is man's enemy, rival and competitor."-JOHN J. INGALLS. YOU do but jest, sir, and you jest not well, You How could the hand be enemy of the arm, Or seed and sod be rivals! How could light Feel jealousy of heat, plant of the leaf Or competition dwell 'twixt lip and smile? Are we not part and parcel of yourselves? Like strands in one great braid we intertwine And make the perfect whole. You could not be, Unless we gave you birth; we are the soil From which you sprang, yet sterile were that soil Save as you planted. (Though in the Book we read One woman bore a child with no man's aid We find no record of a man-child born Is but a small achievement at the best Is most unseemly, and devoid of sense. Why prate of our defects, of where we fail, When just the story of our worth would need Development comes ever thro' your praise, As through our praise you reach your highest self. Oh! had you not been miser of your praise And let our virtues be their own reward The old established order of the world Would never have been changed. Small blame is ours For this unsexing of ourselves, and worse Effeminizing of the male. We were Content, sir, till you starved us, heart and brain. All we have done, or wise, or otherwise And go forth as God meant us, hand in hand, THE TRAVELER. Reply to Rudyard Kipling's "He travels the fastest who travels alone." HO travels alone with his eyes on the WHO heights, Tho' he laughs in the day time oft weeps in the nights. For courage goes down at the set of the sun He speeds but to grief tho' full gayly he ride Who travels alone without lover or friend But hurries from nothing, to naught at the end. Tho' great be his winnings and high be his goal Life's one gift of value to him is denied It is easy enough in this world to make haste. If one live for that purpose-but think of the waste. For life is a poem to leisurely read And the joy of the journey lies not in its speed. Oh, vain his achievement, and petty his pride NOW. LEAVE with God, to-morrow's where and how, That little word though half the future's length Like one blindfolded groping out his way, I will not try to touch beyond to-day. That done the next, and so on, till I find Who says, "Rest, now, for you have reached the end."' |