<h2><SPAN name="poem89"></SPAN>A WOMAN’S ANSWER</h2>
<p class="poetry">You call me an angel of love and of light,<br/>
A being of goodness and heavenly fire,<br/>
Sent out from God’s kingdom to guide you aright,<br/>
In paths where your spirit may mount and aspire,<br/>
You say that I glow like a star on its course,<br/>
Like a ray from the altar, a spark from the source.</p>
<p class="poetry">Now list to my answer—let all the world
hear it,<br/>
I speak unafraid what I know to be true—<br/>
A pure, faithful love is the creative spirit<br/>
Which make women angels! I live but in you.<br/>
We are bound soul to soul by life’s holiest laws;<br/>
If I am an angel—why, you are the cause.</p>
<p class="poetry">As my ship skims the sea, I look up from the deck.<br/>
Fair, firm at the wheel shines Love’s
beautiful form.<br/>
And shall I curse the bark that last night went to wreck<br/>
By the pilot abandoned to darkness and storm?<br/>
My craft is no stauncher, she too had been lost<br/>
Had the wheelman deserted, or slept at his post.</p>
<p class="poetry">I laid down the wealth of my soul at your
feet<br/>
(Some woman does this for some man every day).<br/>
No desperate creature who walks in the street<br/>
Has a wickeder heart than I might have, I say,<br/>
Had you wantonly misused the treasures you won—<br/>
As so many men with heart-riches have done.</p>
<p class="poetry">This fire from God’s altar, this holy
love-flame,<br/>
That burns like sweet incense forever for you,<br/>
Might now be a wild conflagration of shame,<br/>
Had you tortured my heart, or been base or
untrue.<br/>
For angels and devils are cast in one mould,<br/>
Till love guides them upward or downward, I hold.</p>
<p class="poetry">I tell you the women who make fervent wives<br/>
And sweet tender mothers, had Fate been less
fair,<br/>
Are the women who might have abandoned their lives<br/>
To the madness that springs from and ends in
despair.<br/>
As the fire on the hearth which sheds brightness around,<br/>
Neglected, may level the walls to the ground.</p>
<p class="poetry">The world makes grave errors in judging these
things.<br/>
Great good and great evil are born in one breast:<br/>
Love horns us and hoofs us, or gives us our wings,<br/>
And the best could be worst, as the worst could be
best.<br/>
You must thank your own worth for what I grew to be,<br/>
For the demon lurked under the angel in me.</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.