Classic Poem

I

Waken, O Women, to the trumpet sound
Greeting our day of long sought liberty;
Gone are the ages that have held us bound
Beneath a master, now we stand as he,
Free for world-service unto all mankind,
Free of the dragging chains that used to bind,
The sordid labor, the unnoticed woe,
The helpless shame, the unresisted blow,
Submission to our owner's least command —
No longer pets or slaves are we, for lo!
Women are free at last in all the land.

II

Long was the stony road our feet have found
From that darl past to the new world we see,
Each step with heavy hindrance hemmed around,
Each door to freedom closed with bolt and key
Our feet with old tradition all entwined,
Untrained, uneducated, uncombined,
We had to fight old faiths of long ago,
And in our households find our dearest foe,
Against the world's whole weight we had to stand
Till came the day it could no more say no —
Women are free at last in all the land.

III

Around us prejudice, emotion-drowned,
Rose like a flood and would not let us free;
Women themselves, soft-bred and silken gowned,
Historic shame have won by their mad plea
To keep their own subjection; with them lined
All evil forces of the world we find;
No crime so brazen and no vice so low
But fought us, with inertia blind and slow,
And ignorance beneath its darkling brand
With these we strove and still must strive, although
Women are free at last in all the land.

IV.

The serving squaw, the peasant, toil-embrowned
The household drudge, no honor and no fee —
For these we now see women world renowned,
In art and science, work of all degree
She whom world progress had left far behind
Now has the secret of full life divined,
Her largest service gladly to bestow;
Great is the gain since ages far below,
In honored labor, both of head and hand
Now may her power and genius clearly show
Women are free at last in all the land.

V.

Long years of effort to her praise rebound
To such high courage all may bend the knee,
Beside her brother, with full freedom crowned,
Mother and wife and citizen is she,
Queen of her soul and body, heart and mind,
Strong for the noble service God designed,
See now the marching millions, row by row,
With steady eyes and faces all aglow,
They come! they come! a glad triumphant band —
Roses and laurels in their pathway strew —
Women are free at last in all the land!

ENVOI

Sisters! we now must change the world we know
To one great garden where the child may grow.
New freedom means new duty broad and grand
To make a better world and hold it so
Women are free at last in all the land.