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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
Without the aid of woman! Fatherhood

Is but a small achievement at the best
While motherhood comprises heaven and hell.)
This ever-growing argument of sex

Is most unseemly, and devoid of sense.
Why waste more time in controversy, when
There is not time enough for all of love,
Our rightful occupation in this life.

Why prate of our defects, of where we fail,

When just the story of our worth would need
Eternity for telling, and our best

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
Traced to the root, was done for love of you.
Let us taboo all vain comparisons,

And go forth as God meant us, hand in hand,
Companions, mates and comrades evermore;
Two parts of one divinely ordained whole.

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
When the toil of the journey is all borne by one.

He speeds but to grief tho' full gayly he ride
Who travels alone without love at his side.

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
He is bankrupt in wisdom and beggared in soul.

Life's one gift of value to him is denied
Who travels alone without love at his side.

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
Who travels alone without love at his side.

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NOW.

LEAVE with God, to-morrow's where and how,
And do concern myself but with the Now,

That little word though half the future's length
Well used, holds twice its meaning and its strength.

Like one blindfolded groping out his way,

I will not try to touch beyond to-day.
Since all the future is concealed from sight
I need but strive to make the next step right.

That done the next, and so on, till I find
Perchance some day I am no longer blind,
And looking up, behold a radiant Friend

Who says, "Rest, now, for you have reached the end."'

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