Not Understood and Other Poems/Woman’s Rights
WOMAN’S RIGHTS.
SOME people think that women should Compete in life’s swift raceWith men, and gain each privilege, Position, power, and placeWhich he enjoys. I can’t agree With those progressive lights;I’ll tell you what appears to me To be fair woman’s rights.
When passion’s young ecstatic fire First kindles in our veins,’Tis woman’s right to bind our hearts In Cupid’s rosy chains;She wields a queenly sceptre then, Which we must needs obey,We’re building castles in the night And dreaming all the day.
’Tis woman’s right to be caressed When love is in the spring,And when affection’s harvest comes, Her right it is to bringThe garnered fruits of happiness To cheer man’s dreary way,To smooth his rougher nature, And refine his coarser clay.
’Tis woman’s right to wean us from Our selfishness and greed,A counsellor in trouble and A faithful friend in need. ’Tis woman’s right to lead us from The foot of Mammon’s throne,And take us to a nobler shrine Where purer joys are known.
’Tis woman’s sacred right—and this To her by God is given—To teach the lisping little ones The password into Heaven.No joy man knows on earth can with A mother’s bliss compareWhen, listening with the angel choir, She hears her child’s first prayer.
’Tis woman’s right to lean on man In sorrow and distress,For he was made to comfort her, And she was made to bless;Her bulwark against danger, be She daughter, sister, wife,Or mother, he should guard her well— Aye, even with his life.
’Tis woman’s right, ere we prepare To battle in life’s van,To shape our future destinies And mould the mind of man;And here, where we’re erecting on Pacific’s breast a StateThe mothers of our rising race Can make it poor or great.