Classic Poem

All honour to women! They kindly adorn
With roses from heaven poor mortals forlorn;
The chaplets of love they deliciously twine,
Their charm is enhanced by a modest attire
As they piously cherish the sensitive fire
Of sentiment on its immaculate shrine.

Man strives ever to outsoar
Sober fact's material chains,
And his mind with restless power
O'er the sea of passion strains;
Never is his soul at rest,
In futurity he gropes,
To the stars pursues the quest
Of his visionary hopes.

But woman, with looks that will not be denied,
Soon summons the fugitive back to her side,
And bids him from projects of wandering cease.
True daughters of Nature ne'er flutter to roam
Afield from their mother's exiguous home,
But rest with a sober demeanour in peace.

Man is ever prone to strife:
Undiscerning, straight he goes,
Rushing forcibly through life,
Never halting for repose;
Hurls his own creations down,
Knows no term to his desires;
Like the Hydra of renown,
From a fall new strength acquires.

But woman, content with a narrower power,
Plucks singly each dainty developing flower,
And lovingly cherishes it in her breast;
Less trammelled than man in her limited sphere,
And richer than he in her smaller career,
More deeply by poetry's whispers impressed.

Hard and proud and self-contained,
Never has man's forward heart
To that perfect bliss attained
Which affection can impart.
For a kindred soul to feel
Is not his, he can not weep,
And life's battle does but steel
Harder yet his purpose deep.

As the murmuring touch of the Zephyr inspires
With life the soft-breathing Æolian wires,
So woman's vibrating and sensitive soul,
In sympathy with the presentment of grief,
Heaves deep in her bosom, and conjures relief
From the heavenly pearls down her lashes which roll.

Man in his imperious mood
Subjects rectitude to might,
Scythian proves his case in blood,
Persian worsted is in fight.
Passions uncontrolled and rude
In the din of battle gloat;
Eris's raucous screams obtrude
Where the Graces used to float.
But anon with a gentle and eloquent mien
Sweet woman appears like a law-giving queen,
And quenches the strife that still sulkily glows;
Arch enemies, thanks to her delicate grace,
Their anger forget in a loving embrace,
And ever united are obstinate foes.