Woman free

WYMAN AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND REDHILL.

“Le philosophe, en étudiant les lois de la Nature, acquiert chaque jour la conviction que de leur violation seule naissent tous les maux dont gémit l’humanité.”

“The philosopher, in studying the laws of Nature, acquires more deeply every day the conviction that from their abuse alone spring all the evils from which humanity is groaning.”

DR. MENVILLE DE PONSAN (Histoire de la Femme; Vol. III., p. 3).

WOMAN FREE.

I.

Source of the Light that cheers this later day, Science calm moves to spread her sovereign sway; Research and Reason, ranged on either hand, Proclaim her message to each waiting land; In truths whose import stands but part revealed, Till man befit himself those truths to wield; Since to high Knowledge duties high belong, As to the poet’s power the task of worthy song.

II.

And man, from every stage of slow degree, Amendment for his previous rule may see; His keener conscience in our fuller time Perceives the whilom careless act a crime, Or finds some fancied fault to progress tend,— By wiser vision traced to truer end; Till, growing shrewder in the growing light, We know no lack of good but our own lack of sight.

III.

Thus, sad at first, we mark each evil deed, Of ignorance or will, bear fatal seed Of suffering to others in its train,— The guileless share its penalty of pain,— And man’s worst misery ofttimes is brought By trespass he himself nor did nor thought; Austere the fiat, yet therefrom we learn A purer life to frame, lest myriads mourn in turn.

IV.

Deep though the teaching that this truth reveals Of fellowship of man with all that feels, Remains the riddle that, though inmost ken Of humblest creatures and of rudest men Has sense of freedom as an instinct strong,— Resenting injury as act of wrong,— Man listed not this monitor’s still voice, But gave his wanton wish the guilty force of choice.

V.

Dark looms the record of his earlier years,— A troubled tale of infamy and tears; For, of the ill by man primeval wrought, Shows forth predominant with anguish fraught, And long disaster to the ensuant race, The direful course of degradation base, Where freedom, justice, right,—at one fell blow,— In woman’s life of slave were outraged and laid low.

VI.

The inklings gleaned of prehistoric hour Speak woman thrall to man’s unbridled power; Than brute more gifted, he, with heinous skill, Subdued her being to his sensual will; Binding her fast with ties of cunning weight, By mother’s burden forced to slavish fate; Thus woman was, and such her man-made doom, Ere yet the dawn of love illumed the soulless gloom.

VII.

Ere Evolution, in unhasting speed, Trained man’s regard to larger life and need; By Art his feelings waked to functions higher, Disclosed within his clay the veins of fire, Taught him his pleasures of the flesh to find But presage of the mightier joys of mind; Evoked the soul from fume of mortal dust, The vestal flame of love from lower flush of lust.

VIII.

The eye that once could note but food or foe Grew wise to watch the landscape’s varied glow; To gaze beyond our earthly temporal bars, And track the orbit of the wandering stars: The voice erst roused by hunger or by rage Now tells the nobler passions of the age, Till with love’s language is uplifted love To high and selfless thought all sensuous aim above.

IX.

But not at once such life and love to know, For progress strives through many an ebb and flow; Man’s kindling sense, though stirred by call of Art, Still missed the motive of her deepest heart; ’Twas in her gracious embassy to give A fairer faith and fate to all that live, Neglecting none,—yet man, ’twixt lust and pride, Due portion in the boon to woman still denied.

X.

Æons of wrong ere history was born, With added ages passed in slight and scorn, Maintained the chains of primal womanhood, And clogged in turn man’s power of greater good; Egypt or Greece in vain sought heavenly light While woman’s soul was held from equal flight,— Her path confined by man to sordid end, As subjugated wife, or hireling transient friend.

XI.

Marriage—which might have been a mateship sweet, Where equal souls in hallowed converse meet, Each aiding each the higher truths to find, And raising body to the plane of mind,— Man’s baser will restrained to lower grade, And woman’s share a brainless bondage made; Her only hope of thought or learning wide, Some freer lot to seek than yoke forlorn of bride.

XII.

Yet, as hetaira,—comrade, chambermate,— (The ambiguous word bespoke her dubious state), She, craving mental food, might but be guest By paying with her body for the quest; Conceding that, might lead a learned life,— A licence vetoed to the legal wife,— Might win great wealth, or build a lasting fame, Not due to her the guilt that left the tinge of shame.

XIII.

What guilt was there, apportion it aright To him who fixed the gages of the fight; Blame man, who, reckless of the woman’s fate, In greed for meaner pleasure lost the great; Blame him, the vaunted sage, who knew her mind Peer to his own in skill and wit refined, Yet left the after-ages to bemoan The waste of woman worth that dawned and die unknown.

XIV.

And deep the shame on man’s insensate heart For later woman doomed to hideous part; Poor lostling, bowed with worse than brutal woes,— To her not even dealt the brute’s repose; Her sweetness sullied, and her frame disgraced, Soul scarce might light her temple fair defaced,— Its chastest sanctities coerced to give For painful bread to eat, for piteous chance to live.

XV.

While such her fate in lands of cultured creed, Judge woman’s griefs with man of barbarous breed; Slave to his lust, and tiller of his soil, Crippled and crushed by cruelty and toil; Yet still her heart a gentle mien essayed, By deeper passion, holier impulse, swayed; Care for her wretched offspring rarely swerved, And mother-love alone the infant oft preserved.

XVI.

Thus woman’s life, in low or high estate, Man fettered with a more than natural weight Of sexual function,—disproportioned theme And single basis in his female scheme; He strove to quench her flash of quicker fire, That crossed his lordship or his low desire; Her one permitted end to serve his race, Her individual soul forbidden breathing place.

XVII.

Scarce other seemed that soul than sentient tomb Of human energy debarred to bloom; Her spirit, pining in its durance drear, Leaves legacy of many a burning tear For aspirations crushed, and aims denied, And instincts thwarted by man’s purblind pride; Her every wish made subject to the nod Of him whose mad conceit proclaimed himself her God.

XVIII.