Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Page 178
To wait in weakness, and to walk in power;
But always fronting onward to the light,
Always and always facing toward the right.
Robbed, starved, defeated, fallen, wide astray —
On, with what strength I have!
Back to the way!
WOMAN.
SHE WALKETH VEILED AND SLEEPING.
SHE walketh veiled and sleeping,
For she knoweth not her power;
She obeyeth but the pleading
Of her heart, and the high leading
Of her soul, unto this hour.
Slow advancing, halting, creeping,
Comes the Woman to the hour! —
She walketh veiled and sleeping,
For she knoweth not her power.
TO MAN.
IN dark and early ages, through the primal forests faring,
Ere the soul came shining into prehistoric night,
Two-fold man was equal; they were comrades dear and daring,
Living wild and free together in unreasoning delight.
Ere the soul was born and consciousness came slowly,
Ere the soul was born, to man and woman too,
Ere he found the Tree of Knowledge, that awful tree and holy,
Ere he knew he felt, and knew he knew.
Then said he to Pain, “I am wise now, and I know you!
No more will I suffer while power and wisdom last!”
Then said he to Pleasure, “I am strong, and I will show you
That the will of man can seize you; aye, and hold you fast!”
Food he ate for pleasure, and wine he drank for gladness,
And woman? Ah, the woman! the crown of all delight! —
His now — he knew it! He was strong to madness
In that early dawning after prehistoric night.
His — his forever! That glory sweet and tender!
Ah, but he would love her! And she should love but him!
He would work and struggle for her, he would shelter and defend her;
She should never leave him, never, till their eyes in death were dim.
Close, close he bound her, that she should leave him never;
Weak still he kept her, lest she be strong to flee;
And the fainting flame of passion he kept alive forever
With all the arts and forces of earth and sky and sea.
And, ah, the long journey! The slow and awful ages
They have labored up together, blind and crippled, all astray!
Through what a mighty volume, with a million shameful pages,
From the freedom of the forest to the prisons of to-day!
Food he ate for pleasure, and it slew him with diseases!
Wine he drank for gladness, and it led the way to crime!
And woman? He will hold her — he will have her when he pleases —
And he never once hath seen her since the prehistoric time!
Gone the friend and comrade of the day when life was younger,
She who rests and comforts, she who helps and saves;
Still he seeks her vainly, with a never-dying hunger;
Alone beneath his tyrants, alone above his slaves!
Toiler, bent and weary with the load of thine own making!
Thou who art sad and lonely, though lonely all in vain!
Who hast sought to conquer Pleasure and have her for the taking,
And found that Pleasure only was another name for Pain,
Nature hath reclaimed thee, forgiving dispossession!
God hath not forgotten, though man doth still forget!
The woman-soul is rising, in despite of thy transgression;
Loose her now — and trust her! She will love thee yet!
Love thee? She will love thee as only freedom knoweth;
Love thee? She will love thee while Love itself doth live!
Fear not the heart of woman! No bitterness it showeth!
The ages of her sorrow have but taught her to forgive!
WOMEN OF TO-DAY.
You women of to-day who fear so much
The women of the future, showing how
The dangers of her course are such and such —
What are you now?
Mothers and Wives and Housekeepers, forsooth!
Great names! you cry, full scope to rule and please!
Room for wise age and energetic youth! —
But are you these?
Housekeepers? Do you then, like those of yore,
Keep house with power and pride, with grace and ease?
No, you keep servants only! What is more,
You don’t keep these!
Wives, say you? Wives! Blessed indeed are they
Who hold of love the everlasting keys,
Keeping their husbands’ hearts! Alas the day!
You don’t keep these!
And mothers? Pitying Heaven! Mark the cry
From cradle death-beds! Mothers on their knees!
Why, half the children born — as children die!
You don’t keep these!
And still the wailing babies come and go,
And homes are waste, and husbands’ hearts fly far,
There is no hope until you dare to know
The thing you are!
TO THE YOUNG WIFE.
ARE you content, you pretty three-years? wife?
Are you content and satisfied to live
On what your loving husband loves to give,
And give to him your life?
Are you content with work, to toil alone,
To clean things dirty and to soil things clean;
To be a kitchen-maid, be called a queen,
Queen of a cook-stove throne?
Are you content to reign in that small space —
A wooden palace and a yard-fenced land —
With other queens abundant on each hand,
Each fastened in her place?
Are you content to rear your children so?
Untaught yourself, untrained, perplexed, distressed,
Are you so sure your way is always best?
That you can always know?
Have you forgotten how you used to long
In days of ardent girlhood, to be great,
To help the groaning world, to serve the state,
To be so wise — so strong?
And are you quite convinced this is the way,
The only way a woman’s duty lies —
Knowing all women so have shut their eyes?
Seeing the world to-day?
Have you no dream of life in fuller store?
Of growing to be more than that you are?
Doing the things you now do better far,
Yet doing ‘others — more?
Losing no love, but finding as you grew
That as you entered upon nobler life
You so became a richer, sweeter wife,
A wiser mother too?
What holds you? Ah, my dear, it is your throne,
Your paltry queenship in that narrow place,
Your antique labors, your restricted space,
Your working all alone !
Be not deceived! ‘T is not your wifely bond
That holds you, nor the mother’s royal power,
But selfish, slavish service hour by hour —
A life with no beyond!
FALSE PLAY.
“Do you love me?” asked the mother of her child,
And the baby answered, “No!”
Great Love listened and sadly smiled;
He knew the love in the heart of the child —
That you could not wake it so.
“Do not love me?” the foolish mother cried,
And the baby answered, “No!”
He knew the worth of the trick she tried —
Great Love listened, and grieving, sighed
That the mother scorned him so.
“Oh, poor mama!” and she play
ed her part
Till the baby’s strength gave way:
He knew it was false in his inmost heart,
But he could not bear that her tears should start,
So he joined in the lying play.
“Then love mama!” and the soft lips crept
To the kiss that his love should show,
The mouth to speak while the spirit slept!
Great Love listened, and blushed, and wept
That they blasphemed him so.
MOTHERHOOD.
MOTHERHOOD: First mere laying of an egg,
With blind foreseeing of the wisest place,
And blind provision of the proper food
For unseen larva to grow fat upon
After the instinct-guided mother died,
Posthumous motherhood, no love, no joy.
Motherhood: Brooding patient o’er the nest,
With gentle stirring of an unknown love;
Defending eggs unhatched, feeding the young
For days of callow feebleness, and then
Driving the fledglings from the nest to fly.
Motherhood: When the kitten and the cub
Cried out alive, and first the mother knew
The fumbling of furry little paws,
The pressure of the hungry little mouths
Against the more than ready mother-breast,
The love that comes of giving and of care.
Motherhood: Nursing with her heart-warm milk,
Fighting to death all danger to her young,
Hunting for food for little ones half-weaned,
Teaching them how to hunt and fight in turn,
Then loving not till the new litter came.
Motherhood: When the little savage grew
Tall at his mother’s side, and learned to feel
Some mother even in his father’s heart,
Love coming to new babies while the first
Still needed mother’s care, and therefore love,
Love lasting longer because childhood did.
Motherhood: Semi-civilized, intense,
Fierce with brute passion, narrow with the range
Of slavish lives to meanest service bowed;
Devoted — to the sacrifice of life;
Jealous beyond belief, and ignorant
Even of what should keep the child alive.
Love spreading with the spread of human needs,
The child’s new, changing, ever-growing wants,
Yet seeking like brute mothers of the past
To give all things to her own child herself.
Loving to the exclusion of all else;
To the child’s service bending a whole life;
Yet stunting the young creature day by day
With lack of Justice, Liberty, and Peace.
Motherhood: Civilized. There stands at last,
Facing the heavens with as calm a smile,
The highest fruit of the long work of God;
The highest type of this, the highest race;
She from whose groping instinct grew all love —
All love — in which is all the life of man.
Motherhood: Seeing with her clear, kind eyes,
Luminous, tender eyes, wherein the smile
Is like the smile of sunlight on the sea,
That the new children of the newer day
Need more than any single heart can give,
More than is known to any single mind,
More than is found in any single house,
And need it from the day they see the light.
Then, measuring her love by what they need,
Gives, from the heart of modern motherhood.
Gives first, as tree to bear God’s highest fruit,
A clean, strong body, perfect and full grown,
Fair for the purpose of its womanhood,
Not for light fancy of a lower mind;
Gives a clear mind, athletic, beautiful,
Dispassionate, unswerving from the truth;
Gives a great heart that throbs with human love,
As she would wish her son to love the world.
Then, when the child comes, lovely as a star,
She, in the peace of primal motherhood,
Nurses her baby with unceasing joy,
With milk of human kindness, human health,
Bright human beauty, and immortal love.
And then? Ah! here is the New Motherhood —
The motherhood of the fair new-made world —
O glorious New Mother of New Men!
Her child, with other children from its birth,
In the unstinted freedom of warm air,
Under the wisest eyes, the tenderest thought,
Surrounded by all beauty and all peace,
Led, playing, through the gardens of the world,
With the crowned heads of science and great love
Mapping safe paths for those small, rosy feet,
Taught human love by feeling human love,
Taught justice by the laws that rule his days,
Taught wisdom by the way in which he lives,
Taught to love all mankind and serve them fair
By seeing, from his birth, all children served
With the same righteous, all-embracing care.
O Mother! Noble Mother, yet to come!
How shall thy child point to the bright career
Of her of whom he boasts to be the son —
Not for assiduous service spent on him,
But for the wisdom which has set him forth
A clear-brained, pure-souled, noble-hearted man,
With health and strength and beauty his by birth;
And, more, for the wide record of her life,
Great work, well done, that makes him praise her name
And long to make as great a one his own!
And how shall all the children of the world,
Feeling all mothers love them, loving all,
Rise up and call her blessed!
This shall be.
SIX HOURS A DAY.
Six hours a day the woman spends on food!
Six mortal hours a day —
With fire and water toiling, heat and cold;
Struggling with laws she does not understand
Of chemistry and physics, and the weight
Of poverty and ignorance besides.
Toiling for those she loves, the added strain
Of tense emotion on her humble skill,
The sensitiveness born of love and fear,
Making it harder to do even work.
Toiling without release, no hope ahead
Of taking up another business soon,
Of varying the task she finds too hard —
This, her career, so closely interknit
With holier demands as deep as life
That to refuse to cook is held the same
As to refuse her wife and motherhood.
Six mortal hours a day to handle food,
Prepare it, serve it, clean it all away,
With allied labors of the stove and tub,
The pan, the dishcloth, and the scrubbing-brush.
Developing forever in her brain
The power to do this work in which she lives;
While the slow finger of Heredity
Writes on the forehead of each living man,
Strive as he may, “His mother was a cook!”
AN OLD PROVERB.
“As much pity to see a woman weep as to see a goose go barefoot.”
No escape, little creature! The earth hath no place
For the woman who seeketh to fly from her race.
Poor, ignorant, timid, too helpless to roam,
The woman must bear what befalls her, at home.
Bear bravely, bear dumbly — it is but the same
That all others endure who live under the name.
No escape, little creature!
No escape under heaven! C
an man treat you worse
After God has laid on you his infinite curse?
The heaviest burden of sorrow you win
Cannot weigh with the load of original sin;
No shame be too black for the cowering face
Of her who brought shame to the whole human race!
No escape under heaven!
Yet you feel, being human. You shrink from the pain
That each child, boro a woman, must suffer again.
From the strongest of bonds heart can feel, man can shape,
You cannot rebel, or appeal, or escape.
You must bear and endure. If the heart cannot sleep,
And the pain groweth bitter, too bitter, then weep!
For you feel, being human.
And she wept, being woman. The numberless years
Have counted her burdens and counted her tears;
The maid wept forsaken, the mother forlorn
For the child that was dead, and the child that was born.
Wept for joy — as a miracle! — wept in her pain!
Wept aloud, wept in secret, wept ever in vain!
Still she weeps, being woman.
REASSURANCE.
CAN you imagine nothing better, brother,
Than that which you have always had before?
Have you been so content with “wife and mother,”
You dare hope nothing more?
Have you forever prized her, praised her, sung her,
The happy queen of a most happy reign?
Never dishonored her, despised her, flung her
Derision and disdain?
Go ask the literature of all the ages!
Books that were written before women read!
Pagan and Christian, satirists and sages,
Bead what the world has said!
There was no power on earth to bid you slacken
The generous hand that painted her disgrace!
There was no shame on earth too black to blacken
That much praised woman-face!
Eve and Pandora! — always you begin it —
The ancients called her Sin and Shame and Death!
“There is no evil without woman in it,”
The modern proverb saith!
She has been yours in uttermost possession,
Your slave, your mother, your well-chosen bride,
And you have owned, in million-fold confession,
You were not satisfied.
Peace, then! Fear not the coming woman, brother!
Owning herself, she giveth all the more!
She shall be better woman, wife, and mother