Page:The New Penelope.djvu/292

286 We held by till then: our defences

Of home, of fair fame; the affection

Of parents and kindred; the human

Delight of child-love; the protection

That is everywhere owed to a woman.

You say there's a Being all-loving,

Whose nature is justice and pity:

Could you say where you think he is roving?

We have sought him from city to city.

We have called unto him, our eyes streaming

With the tears of our pain and despair:

We have shouted unto him blaspheming,

And whispered unto him in prayer.

But he sleeps, or is absent, or lending

His ear to man's prouder petition:

And the black silence over us bending

Scorches hot with the breath of perdition.

For this fair world of man's, in which woman

Pays for all that she gets with her beauty,

Is a desert that starves out the human,

When her charms charm not squarely with duty.

For man were we made, says the preacher,

To love him and serve him in meekness,

Of man's God is man solely the teacher

Interpreting unto our weakness:

He the teacher, the master, dispenser

Not only of law, but of living,

Breaks his own law with us, then turns censor,

Accusing, but never forgiving.

Do you think that we have not been nursing

Resentment for wrong and betrayal?

From our hearts, filled with gall, rises cursing,

To our own and our masters' dismayal.