Words to Woman
Now, Lady fair, whoe'er ye be,
List for a little space to me;
A little space; I hold it crime
To clip the skirts of lady's time.
And who is he, saith many a dame,
That urges thus his idle claim?
Say, are the eyes his soul looks through
The true poetic pattern—blue?
And is his talk of groves and bowers?
And are his pockets filled with flowers?
And is he famous? has he been
Engraved on stone, like him of Lynn?
A fiddlestick, romantic maid,
For all your symbols of the trade;
As Heaven has made me, so am I,
And Heaven knew best the how and why;
And as for fame, my neighbors say
Some flattering things across the way,
And in the papers far and wide
I've seen my lines—but this aside.
Then, Lady, list; the swallow's wing
Is dripping with the dews of spring,
And down my alley, dark and blind,
One spring, survivor of its kind,
Comes bristling up the stones between,
So thin, so crooked and so green,
Like the last virgin left alone
Of seven sweet daughters wooed and won.
All thoughts, all looks, all words, all eyes,
Are softening like the gentle skies;
And many a lip, that whispered ‘No.’
Is wondering why it answered so;
For ice, that scorned December's noon,
Melts ere it feels the breath of June;
And Oh, when Heaven is warm above,
The heart,—that pendulum of love—
Beats faster, as if Time were seeing
Its sweet intensity of being.
Yes, spring has come—with all her train,
Green leaves, and “cuttie sarks,” again,
As if to make us all believe
Earth paradise and woman Eve!
Now then beware; a playful trip,
A casual step, a careless slip,
May chance to show the sun and air,
What knights and ladies sometimes wear;
A hint must serve us for the nonce—
And “hom soit qui mal y pense.”
To one whose path is bare and wild—
Who has no home, no wife, no child,
Who, if he loves, must love alone
Some dear abstraction of his own,
Some truths may find their way more free
Through the thin air of vacancy;
To see the governor and his aid,
One should not join the cavalcade.
Women from two extremes incline
Towards a faint dividing line,
From her, whom nature stamped a prude,
Up to the—, fie, I can't be rude;
The lemonade, and eau-de-vie,
That make our punch—society.
And each should play a different part,
To find an entrance to the heart;
What nature gave the one may hide,
The other steal what she denied.
Some borrowed glow, half-frozen maid,
Will mellow down thy native shade;
A rose, a ribband, and a curl
Will make one's grandam seem a girl.
But do not thou, luxuriant one,
Lay bare thy richness to the sun.
Not that my cheek is wont to burn—
I walk to stare and stare to learn;
But she, whose touch all hearts must feel,
Should wear no spur upon her heel!
Alas, that she, whom Nature made,
Whom Art has lent her liberal aid,
In spite of all her power to bless,
Should play the suicide in dress.
Thin spectres, must ye ever strive
To seem less palpably alive,
Afraid, lest rebel planes should swerve
And crack your buckram to a curve?
Hebes, who deem your fortune hard,
To buy your girdles by the yard,
Is not your suffering worse than vain,
To make the zone a martyr's chain?
Nor yet too brightly strive to blaze,
By stealing all the rainbow rays;
Your gaudy artificial fly,
Will only take the younger fry.
Who has not seen, and seeing, mourned,
And mourning, smiled, and smiling, scorned,
In wild ambition flaming down,
Some comet from a country town?
See, see her, in her motley hues—
Funereal blacks, and brimstone blues,
And lurid green, and bonfire red.
At once their varied radiance shed,
And skin-deep gold, and would-be pearls,
And Oh! those heaps of corkscrew curls!
Sylph of Farina's best Cologne!
Soft sighing from thy vapory throne,
Breathe life into me when I swoon,
Scared by the fiends that walk at noon!
Sweet statue! classic, chaste and fair,
Albeit cold and somewhat bare,
Give back the stern simplicity
That living woman gave to thee!
Spirit of change! whose Iris wing
Must shed its feathers every spring,
Smile on the barks, whose bosoms bear
All that fantastic France can spare!
And what no parent can refuse,
O give the daughters grace to use!
List for a little space to me;
A little space; I hold it crime
To clip the skirts of lady's time.
And who is he, saith many a dame,
That urges thus his idle claim?
Say, are the eyes his soul looks through
The true poetic pattern—blue?
And is his talk of groves and bowers?
And are his pockets filled with flowers?
And is he famous? has he been
Engraved on stone, like him of Lynn?
A fiddlestick, romantic maid,
For all your symbols of the trade;
As Heaven has made me, so am I,
And Heaven knew best the how and why;
And as for fame, my neighbors say
Some flattering things across the way,
And in the papers far and wide
I've seen my lines—but this aside.
Then, Lady, list; the swallow's wing
Is dripping with the dews of spring,
And down my alley, dark and blind,
One spring, survivor of its kind,
Comes bristling up the stones between,
So thin, so crooked and so green,
Like the last virgin left alone
Of seven sweet daughters wooed and won.
All thoughts, all looks, all words, all eyes,
Are softening like the gentle skies;
And many a lip, that whispered ‘No.’
Is wondering why it answered so;
For ice, that scorned December's noon,
Melts ere it feels the breath of June;
And Oh, when Heaven is warm above,
The heart,—that pendulum of love—
Beats faster, as if Time were seeing
Its sweet intensity of being.
Yes, spring has come—with all her train,
Green leaves, and “cuttie sarks,” again,
As if to make us all believe
Earth paradise and woman Eve!
Now then beware; a playful trip,
A casual step, a careless slip,
May chance to show the sun and air,
What knights and ladies sometimes wear;
A hint must serve us for the nonce—
And “hom soit qui mal y pense.”
To one whose path is bare and wild—
Who has no home, no wife, no child,
Who, if he loves, must love alone
Some dear abstraction of his own,
Some truths may find their way more free
Through the thin air of vacancy;
To see the governor and his aid,
One should not join the cavalcade.
Women from two extremes incline
Towards a faint dividing line,
From her, whom nature stamped a prude,
Up to the—, fie, I can't be rude;
The lemonade, and eau-de-vie,
That make our punch—society.
And each should play a different part,
To find an entrance to the heart;
What nature gave the one may hide,
The other steal what she denied.
Some borrowed glow, half-frozen maid,
Will mellow down thy native shade;
A rose, a ribband, and a curl
Will make one's grandam seem a girl.
But do not thou, luxuriant one,
Lay bare thy richness to the sun.
Not that my cheek is wont to burn—
I walk to stare and stare to learn;
But she, whose touch all hearts must feel,
Should wear no spur upon her heel!
Alas, that she, whom Nature made,
Whom Art has lent her liberal aid,
In spite of all her power to bless,
Should play the suicide in dress.
Thin spectres, must ye ever strive
To seem less palpably alive,
Afraid, lest rebel planes should swerve
And crack your buckram to a curve?
Hebes, who deem your fortune hard,
To buy your girdles by the yard,
Is not your suffering worse than vain,
To make the zone a martyr's chain?
Nor yet too brightly strive to blaze,
By stealing all the rainbow rays;
Your gaudy artificial fly,
Will only take the younger fry.
Who has not seen, and seeing, mourned,
And mourning, smiled, and smiling, scorned,
In wild ambition flaming down,
Some comet from a country town?
See, see her, in her motley hues—
Funereal blacks, and brimstone blues,
And lurid green, and bonfire red.
At once their varied radiance shed,
And skin-deep gold, and would-be pearls,
And Oh! those heaps of corkscrew curls!
Sylph of Farina's best Cologne!
Soft sighing from thy vapory throne,
Breathe life into me when I swoon,
Scared by the fiends that walk at noon!
Sweet statue! classic, chaste and fair,
Albeit cold and somewhat bare,
Give back the stern simplicity
That living woman gave to thee!
Spirit of change! whose Iris wing
Must shed its feathers every spring,
Smile on the barks, whose bosoms bear
All that fantastic France can spare!
And what no parent can refuse,
O give the daughters grace to use!
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