~A Mirror For My Daughter~|
When you were born, I guessed, "A girl, Like me." But your eyes and hair And skin took all their shades From your aunt and father; your narrow Wrists and throat - your great grandmother's. I searched for years to find myself In you - some quirk of mind, some Gesture - none. finally, I gave up and looked Straight at you to discover Who this person is who isn't Me. And you looked back Alight with love and hope Identical to my own. ~Enid Levinger Powell |
~Let Us Smile~|
Tell me what you feel in your solitary room when the full moon is shining in upon you and your lamp is drying out, and I will tell you how old you are, and I shall know if you are happy. ~Henri Frederic Amiel Journal In Time |
~Sonnets From The Portuguese - XLIII~~Said The Rose~|
I am weary of the Garden, Said the Rose; For the winter wind are sighing, All my playmates round me dying, And my leaves will soon be lying, 'Neath the snows. But I hear my Mistress coming, Said the Rose; She will take me to her chamber, Where the honeysuckles clamber, And I'll bloom there all December, Spite the snows. Sweeter fell her lilly finger Than the bee! Ah, how feebly I resisted, Smoothed my thorns, and e'en assisted, As all blushing I was twisted, Off my tree. And she fixed me in her bosom Like a star; And I flashed there all the morning, Jasmine, honeysuckle scorning, Parasites forever fawning, That they are. And when evening came she set me In a vase All of rare and radiant metal And I felt her red lips settle On my leaves til each proud petal Touched her face. And I shone about her slumbers Like a light; And, I said, instead of weeping, In the garden vigil keeping, Here I'll watch my Mistress sleeping Every night. But when morning with its sunbeams Softly shone, In the mirror where she braided Her brown hair I saw how jaded, Old and colorless and faded, I had grown. Not a drop of dew was on me, Never one; From my leaves no odors started, All my perfume had departed, I lay pale and broken-hearted In the sun. Still I said, her smile is better Than the rain; Though my fragrance may forsake me, To her bosom she will take me, And with crimson kisses make me Young again. So she took me . . . gazed a second . . . Half a sigh . . . Then, alas, can hearts so harden? Without ever asking pardon, Threw me back into the garden, There to die. How the jealous garden gloried In my fall! How the honeysuckle chid me, How the sneering jasmins bid me Light the long gray grass that hid me, Like a pall. There I lay beneath her window In a swoon, Till the earthworm o'er me trailing Woke me just at twilight's failing, As the whip-poor-will was wailing To the moon. But I hear the storm-winds stirring In their lair; And I know they soon will lift me In their giant arms and sift me Into ashes as they drift me Through the air. So I pray them in their mercy Just to take From my heart of hearts, or near it The last living leaf, and bear it To her feet, and bid her wear it For my sake. ~George H. Miles |
~The Female of the Species~|
When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride, He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside; But the she-bear, thus accosted, rends the peasant tooth and nail, For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man, He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it as he can; But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail, For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws, They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws. 'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale, For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say, For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away; But when the hunter meets with husband, each confirms the others' tale - The female of the species is more deadly than the male. Man, a bear in most relations - worm and save otherwise - Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise. Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact To it's ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act. Fear, or foolishness, impels him ere he lay the wicked low, To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe. Mirth obscene diverts his anger! Doubt and Pity oft perplex Him in dealing with an issue - to the scandal of The Sex! But the woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same; And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail, The female of the species MUST be deadlier than the male. She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast May not deal in doubt or pity - must not swerve for fact or jest. These be purely male diversions - not in these her honor dwells. She, the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else. She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great And the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate! And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same. She is wedded to convictions - in default of grosser ties; Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child. Unprovoked and awful changes - even so the she-bear fights, Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons - even so the cobra bites, Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw, And the victim writhes in anguish - like the Jesuit with the squaw! So it comes that Man the coward, when he gathers to confer With her fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands To some God of Abstract Justice - which no woman understands. And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him Must command but may not govern -- shall enthrall but not enslave him. And She knows, because She wants him, and Her instincts NEVER fail, The Female of her Species is more deadly than the male. ~Rudyard Kipling |
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