Classic Poem

THE REVIVAL OF AN ANTIQUATED FIGURE, AFTER READING THE VIEWS OF CERTAIN WOMEN ON MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

I

Roseate darling,
Dimpled with laughter,
Nursed on the bosom
Pierced by thee after;
Fed with the rarest
Milk of the fairest
Fond Aphrodite,
Child as thou art, as a god thou art mighty!
II

Thou art the only
Demigod left us;
Fate hath bereft us,
Science made lonely.
Visions and fables
Shrink from our portals;
Long have we banished
The stately Immortals;
Yet, when we sent them
Trooping to Hades —
Olympian gentlemen,
Paphian ladies —
Thou hadst re-risen,
Ere the dark prison
Closed for the last time,
Slipped from the gate and returned to thy pastime!
III

Ever a mystery,
All of our history
Brightens with thee!
Systems have chained us,
Rulers restrained us,
Fortune disdained us,
Still thou wert free!
Lofty or lowly,
Brutish or holy,
Spacious or narrow,
Never a life was secure from thy arrow!
IV

Ah, but they've told us
Love is a system!
They would withhold us
When we have kissed him!
All that perplexes
Sweetly the sexes
They would control,
And with Affinity
Drive the Divinity
Out of the soul!
Better, they say, is
Phryne or Lais
Than the immutable
Faith, and its suitable
Vow, he hath taught us;
Foolish the tender
Pang, the surrender,
When he has caught us;
Fancies and fetters are all he has brought us.

V

Future parental,
Physical, mental
Laws they prescribe us;
And with ecstatic
Strict mathematic
Blisses would bribe us.
Alkali, acid,
They with a placid
Mien would unite,
And the wild rapture
Of chasing and capture
Curb with a right;
Measuring, dealing
Even the kiss of the twilight of feeling!

VI

Who shall deliver
Thee from their credo?
Rent is thy quiver,
Darling Cupido!
Naked, yet blameless,
Tricksily-aimless,
Secretly sure,
Who, then, thy plighting,
Wilful uniting,
Now will endure?
Now, when experiment
Based upon Science
Sets at defiance,
Harshly, thy merriment,
Who shall caress thee
Warm in his bosom, and bliss thee and bless thee?

VII

Ever 't is May-time!
Ever 't is play-time
Of Beauty and Youth!
Freed from confusion,
Hides in illusion
Nature her truth.
Books and discourses,
What can they tell us?
Blood with its forces
Still will compel us!
Cold ones may fly to
Systems, or try to;
Innocent fancy
Still will enwind us,
Love's necromancy
Snare us and bind us,
Systems and rights lie forgotten behind us.