Six 14-Line Poems

I.

PEACE to the odalisque, the facile slave,

Whose unrespective love rewards the brave,

Or cherishes the coward; she who yields

Her lord the fief of waste, uncultured fields

To fester in non-using; she whose hour

Is measured by her beauty's transient flower;

Who lives in man, as he in God, and dies

His parasite, who shuts her from the skies.

Graceful ephemera! Fair morning dream

Of the young world! In vain would women's hearts

In love with sacrifice, withstand the stream

Of human progress; other spheres, new parts

Await them. God be with them in their quest—

Our brave, sad working-women of the West!