Poems of Power

<h2><SPAN name="poem20"></SPAN>WOMAN TO MAN</h2> <blockquote><p>Woman is man&rsquo;s enemy, rival, and competitor.&mdash;<span class="smcap">John j. Ingalls</span>.</p> </blockquote> <p class="poetry">You do but jest, sir, and you jest not well,<br/> How could the hand be enemy of the arm,<br/> Or seed and sod be rivals!&nbsp; How could light<br/> Feel jealousy of heat, plant of the leaf,<br/> Or competition dwell &rsquo;twixt lip and smile?<br/> Are we not part and parcel of yourselves?<br/> Like strands in one great braid we entertwine<br/> And make the perfect whole.&nbsp; You could not be,<br/> Unless we gave you birth; we are the soil<br/> From which you sprang, yet sterile were that soil<br/> Save as you planted.&nbsp; (Though in the Book we read<br/> One woman bore a child with no man&rsquo;s aid,<br/> We find no record of a man-child born<br/> Without the aid of woman!&nbsp; Fatherhood<br/> Is but a small achievement at the best,<br/> While motherhood comprises heaven and hell.)<br/> This ever-growing argument of sex<br/> Is most unseemly, and devoid of sense.<br/> Why waste more time in controversy, when<br/> There is not time enough for all of love,<br/> Our rightful occupation in this life?<br/> Why prate of our defects, of where we fail,<br/> When just the story of our worth would need<br/> Eternity for telling, and our best<br/> Development comes ever through your praise,<br/> As through our praise you reach your highest self?<br/> Oh! had you not been miser of your praise<br/> And let our virtues be their own reward,<br/> The old-established order of the world<br/> Would never have been changed.&nbsp; Small blame is ours<br/> For this unsexing of ourselves, and worse.<br/> Effeminising of the male.&nbsp; We were<br/> Content, sir, till you starved us, heart and brain.<br/> All we have done, or wise, or otherwise,<br/> Traced to the root, was done for love of you.<br/> Let us taboo all vain comparisons,<br/> And go forth as God meant us, hand in hand,<br/> Companions, mates, and comrades evermore;<br/> Two parts of one divinely ordained whole.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />