Classic Poem

Woman is part of Nature. She was born
 From the bright sea-wave. She and flowers are one.
Can your cold Western culture e'er adorn
 Her who is taught by sea-waves and the sun?

Oh, God deliver me from Western dreams!
 Give me warm moonlight on an Arab tent:
Within, the touch that thrills, the glance that gleams;
 Soft bosom o'er me through the darkness bent.

Then am I saved and crowned,—for bliss is there,
 And perfect bliss is heaven. Whate'er men say,
I hold that God set stars within the air
 That mouth to mouth might find a readier way!

Is this ignoble? More than sky or flower
 To love the glory of a woman's grace:
To win eternal rapture in an hour,
 Life at her lips, and heaven in her embrace?

Ever to find fresh shapely wonders shown
 (And beauty has unmeasured power to bless!)—
Ever to come on some grand curve unknown,
 Some line of more than mortal loveliness?

To feel—as ever it is deepliest felt
 At midmost thrilling of the close warm kiss—
The sense of form throughout one's being melt,
 The sculptor's mingled with the lover's bliss?

I hold that God made flowers that man might know
 That woman's beauty is a lovelier joy.
Breathe wisdom on the petals—Down they go!
 Woman becomes an intellectual toy.

Here in the West sweet womanhood is dead.
 Woman is master: mankind is the slave.
Awestruck, the trembling spouse draws near her bed
 And claims the rights her condescension gave.

But she is master, ruler of the West:
 The days of fragrant love have all gone by.
Ah me, the olden days were far the best!
 There were more stars I think, then, in the sky.

There was more tenderness in woman's heart,
 Less curséd Greek and Hebrew in her brain!
Then all she knew (enough to know) of Art
 Was just the art man's passionate love to gain.