women

Love bade me hope, and I obeyed;
Phyllis continued still unkind:
Then you may e'en despair, he said,
In vain I strive to change her mind.

Honour's got in, and keeps her heart,
Durst he but venture once abroad,
In my own right I'd take your part,
And show myself the mightier God.

This huffing Honour domineers
In breasts alone where he has place:
But if true generous Love appears,
The hector dares not show his face.

Let me still languish and complain,
Be most unhumanly denied:

BEFORE I trust my fate to thee,
Or place my hand in thine,
Before I let thy future give
Color and form to mine,
Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul to-night for me.

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel
A shadow of regret:
Is there one link within the Past
That holds thy spirit yet?
Or is thy faith as clear and free as that which I can pledge to thee?

Does there within thy dimmest dreams
A possible future shine,
Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe,

She wakens early remembering
her father rising in the dark
lighting the stove with a match
scraped on the floor. Then measuring
water for coffee, and later the smell
coming through. She would hear
him drying spoons, dropping
them one by one in the drawer.
Then he was on the stairs
going for the milk. So soon
he would be at her door
to wake her gently, he thought,
with a hand at her nape, shaking
to and fro, smelling of gasoline
and whispering. Then he left.

Do you come to me to bend me to your will
as conqueror to the vanquished
to make of me a bondslave
to bear you children, wearing out my life
in drudgery and silence
no servant will i be
if that be what you ask. O lover i refuse you!

Or if you think to wed with one from heaven sent
whose every deed and word and wish is golden
a wingless angel who can do no wrong
go! - i am no doll to dress and sit for feeble worship
if that be what you ask, fool, i refuse you!

Or if you think in me to find

Peace to his ashes!
I cannot for the soul of me
Sorrowing bow,
Tho I search through the heart of me
Grieve for him now.
'Tis well he is gone
And heart-break is over,
A husband he was
But never a lover.

Here's to the men! Since Adam's time
They've always been the same;
Whenever anything goes wrong,
The woman is to blame.
From early morn to late at night,
The men fault-finders are;
They blame us if they oversleep,
Or if they miss a car.
They blame us if, beneath the bed,
Their collar buttons roll;
They blame us if the fire is out
Or if there is no coal.
They blame us if they cut themselves
While shaving, and they swear

My soul is like a poor caged bird to-night,
Beating its wings against the prison bars,
Longing to reach the outer world of light,
And, all untrammelled, soar among the stars.
Wild, mighty thoughts struggle within my soul
For utterance. Great waves of passion roll
Through all my being. As the lightnings play
Through thunder clouds, so beams of blinding light
Flash for a moment on my darkened brain -
Quick, sudden, glaring beams, that fade wawy
And leave me in a darker, deeper night.

I thought, in the days of the droving,
Of steps I might hope to retrace,
To be done with the bush and the roving
And settle once more in my place.
With a heart that was well nigh to breaking,
In the long, lonely rides on the plain,
I thought of the pleasure of taking
The hand of a lady again.
I am back into civilization,
Once more in the stir and the strife,
But the old joys have lost their sensation --
The light has gone out of my life;
The men of my time they have married,

From out the desolation of the North
An iceberg took it away,
From its detaining comrades breaking forth,
And traveling night and day.

At whose command? Who bade it sail the deep
With that resistless force?
Who made the dread appointment it must keep?
Who traced its awful course?

To the warm airs that stir in the sweet South,
A good ship spread her sails;
Stately she passed beyond the harbor's mouth,
Chased by the favoring gales;

And on her ample decks a happy crowd

A squad of regular infantry
In the Commune's closing days,
Had captured a crowd of rebels
By the wall of Pere-la-Chaise.

There were desperate men, wild women,
And dark-eyed Amazon girls,
And one little boy, with a peach-down cheek
And yellow clustering curls.

The captain seized the little waif,
And said, "What dost thou here?"
"Sapristi, Citizen captain!
I'm a Communist, my dear!"

"Very well! Then you die with the others!"
"Very well! That's my affair;