Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Page 180
Not to pile on our fair shoulders what we do not wish to bear!
But, oh, most generous brother! Let us look a little more —
Have we women always wanted what you gave to us before?
Did we ask for veils and harems in the Oriental races?
Did we beseech to be “unclean,” shut out of sacred places?
Did we beg for scolding bridles and ducking stools to come?
And clamor for the beating stick no thicker than your thumb?
Did we seek to be forbidden from all the trades that pay?
Did we claim the lower wages for a man’s full work to-day?
Have we petitioned for the laws herein our shame is shown:
That not a woman’s child — nor her own body — is her own?
What women want has never been a strongly acting cause
When woman has been wronged by man in churches, customs, laws;
Why should he find this preference so largely in his way
When he himself admits the right of what we ask to-day?
WEDDED BLISS.
“O COME and be my mate!” said the Eagle to the Hen;
“I love to soar, but then
I want my mate to rest
Forever in the nest!”
Said the Hen, “I cannot fly,
I have no wish to try,
But I joy to see my mate careering through the sky!”
They wed, and cried, “Ah, this is Love, my own!”
And the Hen sat, the Eagle soared, alone.
“O come and be my mate t” said the Lion to the Sheep;
“My love for you is deep!
I slay, a Lion should,
But you are mild and good!”
Said the Sheep, “I do no ill —
Could not, had I the will —
But I joy to see my mate pursue, devour, and kill.”
They wed, and cried, “Ah, this is Love, my own!”
And the Sheep browsed, the Lion prowled, alone.
“O come and be my mate!” said the Salmon to the Clam;
“You are not wise, but I am.
I know sea and stream as well;
You know nothing but your shell.”
Said the Clam, “I’m slow of motion,
But my love is all devotion,
And I joy to have my mate traverse lake and stream and ocean!”
They wed, and cried, “Ah, this is Love, my own!”
And the Clam sucked, the Salmon swam, alone.
THE HOLY STOVE.
O THE soap-vat is a common thing!
The pickle-tub is low!
The loom and wheel have lost their grace
In falling from the dwelling-place
To mills where all may go!
The bread-tray needeth not your love;
The wash-tub wide doth roam;
Even the oven free may rove;
But bow ye down to the Holy Stove,
The Altar of the Home!
Before it bend the worshippers,
And wreaths of parsley twine;
Above it still the incense curls,
And a passing train of hired girls
Do service at the shrine.
We toil to keep the altar crowned
With dishes new and nice,
And Art and Love, and Time and Truth,
We offer up, with Health and Youth,
In daily sacrifice.
Speak not to us of a fairer faith,
Of a lifetime free from pain.
Our fathers always worshipped here,
Our mothers served this altar drear,
And still we serve amain.
Our earliest dreams around it cling,
Bright hopes that childhood sees,
And memory leaves a vista wide
Where Mother’s Doughnuts rank beside
The thought of Mother’s Knees.
The wood-box hath no sanctity;
No glamour gilds the coal;
But the Cook-Stove is a sacred thing
To which a reverent faith we bring
And serve with heart and soul.
The Home’s a temple all divine,
By the Poker and the Hod!
The Holy Stove is the altar fine,
The wife the priestess at the shrine —
Now who can be the god?
THE MOTHER’S CHARGE.
SHE raised her head. With hot and glittering eye,
“I know,” she said, “that I am going to die.
Come here, my daughter, while my mind is clear.
Let me make plain to you your duty here;
My duty once — I never failed to try —
But for some reason I am going to die.”
She raised her head, and, while her eyes rolled wild,
Poured these instructions on the gasping child:
“Begin at once — don’t iron sitting down —
Wash your potatoes when the fat is brown —
Monday, unless it rains — it always pays
To get fall sewing done on the right days —
A carpet-sweeper and a little broom —
Save dishes — wash the summer dining-room
With soda — keep the children out of doors —
The starch is out — beeswax on all the floors —
If girls are treated like your friends they stay —
They stay, and treat you like their friends — the way
To make home happy is to keep a jar —
And save the prettiest pieces for the star
In the middle — blue’s too dark — all silk is best —
And don’t forget the corners — when they ‘re dressed
Put them on ice — and always wash the chest
Three times a day, the windows every week —
We need more flour — the bedroom ceilings leak —
It’s better than onion — keep the boys at home —
Gardening is good — a load, three loads of loam —
They bloom in spring — and smile, smile always, dear —
Be brave, keep on — I hope I’ve made it clear.”
She died, as all her mothers died before.
Her daughter died in turn, and made one more.
A BROOD MARE.
It is a significant fact that the phenomenal improvement in horses during recent years is accompanied by the growing conviction that good points and a good record are as desirable in the dam as in the sire, if not more so.
I HAD a quarrel yesterday,
A violent dispute,
With a man who tried to sell to me
A strange amorphous brute;
A creature disproportionate,
A beast to make you stare,
An undeveloped, overgrown,
Outrageous-looking mare.
Her fore legs they were weak and thin,
Her hind legs weak and fat;
She was heavy in the quarters,
With a narrow chest and flat;
And she had managed to combine —
I’m sure I don’t know how —
The barrel of a greyhound
With the belly of a cow.
She seemed exceeding feeble,
And he owned with manner bland
That she walked a little, easily,
But wasn’t fit to stand.
I tried to mount the animal
To test her on the track;
But he cried in real anxiety,
“Get off! You’ll strain her back!”
And then I sought to harness her,
But he explained at length
That any draught or carriage work
Was quite beyond her strength.
“No use to carry or to pull!
No use upon the course!”
Said I, “How can you have the face
To call that thing a horse?”
Said he, indignantly, “I don’t!
I’m dealing on the square;
I n
ever said it was a horse,
I told you ‘t was a mare!
“A mare was never meant to race,
To carry, or to pull;
She is meant for breeding only, so
Her place in life is full.”
Said I, “Do you pretend to breed
From such a beast as that?
A mass of shapeless skin and bone,
Or shapeless skin and fat?”
Said he, “Her sire was thoroughbred,
As fine as walked the earth,
And all her colts receive from him
The marks of noble birth;
“And then I mate her carefully
With horses fine and fit;
Mares do not need to have themselves
The points which they transmit!”
Said I, “Do you pretend to say
You can raise colts as fair
From that fat cripple as you can
From an able-bodied mare?”
Quoth he, “I solemnly assert,
Just as I said before,
A mare that’s good for breeding
Can be good for nothing more!”
Cried I, “One thing is certain proof;
One thing I want to see;
Trot out the noble colts you raise
From your anomaly.”
He looked a little dashed at this,
And the poor mare hung her head.
“Fact is,” said he, “she’s had but one,
And that one — well, it’s dead!”
FEMININE VANITY.
FEMININE Vanity! O ye Gods! Hear to this man!
As if silk and velvet and feathers and fur
And jewels and gold had been just for her,
Since the world began!
Where is his memory?
Let him look back — all of the way!
Let him study the history of his race
From the first he-savage that painted his face
To the dude of to-day!
Vanity! Oh! Are the twists and curls,
The intricate patterns in red, black, and blue,
The wearisome tortures of rich tattoo,
Just made for girls?
Is it only the squaw who files the teeth,
And dangles the lip, and bores the ear,
And wears bracelet and necklet and anklet as queer
As the bones beneath?
Look at the soldier, the noble, the king!
Egypt or Greece or Rome discloses
The purples and perfumes and gems and roses
On a masculine thing!
Look at the men of our own dark ages!
Heroes too, in their cloth of gold,
With jewels as thick as the cloth could hold,
On the knights and pages!
We wear false hair? Our man looks big!
But it’s not so long, let me beg to state,
Since every gentleman shaved his pate
And wore a wig.
French heels? Sharp toes? See our feet defaced?
But there was a day when the soldier free
Tied the toe of his shoe to the manly knee —
Yes, and even his waist!
We pad and stuff? Our man looks bolder.
Don’t speak of the time when a bran-filled bunch
Made an English gentleman look like Punch —
But feel of his shoulder!
Feminine Vanity! O ye Gods! Hear to these men!
Vanity’s wide as the world is wide!
Look at the peacock in his pride —
Is it a hen?
THE MODEST MAID.
I AM a modest San Francisco maid,
Fresh, fair, and young,
Such as the painters gladly have displayed,
The poets sung.
Modest? — Oh, modest as a bud unblown,
A thought unspoken;
Hidden and cherished, unbeheld, unknown,
In peace unbroken.
Far from the holy shades of this my home,
The coarse world raves,
And the New Woman cries to heaven’s dome
For what she craves.
Loud, vulgar, public, screaming from the stage,
Her skirt divided,
Riding cross-saddled on the dying age,
Justly derided.
I blush for her, I blush for our sweet sex
By her disgraced.
My sphere is home. My soul I do not vex
With zeal misplaced.
Come then to me with happy heart, O man!
I wait your visit.
To guide your footsteps I do all I can,
Am most explicit.
As veined flower-petals teach the passing bee
The way to honey,
So printer’s ink displayed instructeth thee
Where lies my money.
Go see! In type and cut across the page,
Before the nation,
There you may read about my eyes, my age,
My education,
My fluffy golden hair, my tiny feet,
My pet ambition,
My well-developed figure, and my sweet,
Retiring disposition.
All, all is there, and now I coyly wait.
Pray don’t delay.
My address does the Blue Book plainly state,
And mamma’s “day.”
SAN FRANCISCO, 1896
UNSEXED.
IT was a wild rebellious drone
That loudly did complain;
He wished he was a worker bee
With all his might and main.
“I want to work,” the drone declared.
Quoth they, “The thing you mean
Is that you scorn to be a drone
And long to be a queen.
“You long to lay unnumbered eggs,
And rule the waiting throng;
You long to lead our summer flight,
And this is rankly wrong.”
Cried he, “My life is pitiful!
I only eat and wed,
And in my marriage is the end —
Thereafter I am dead.
“I would I were the busy bee
That flits from flower to flower;
I long to share in work and care
And feel the worker’s power.”
Quoth they, “The life you dare to spurn
Is set before you here
As your one great, prescribed, ordained,
Divinely ordered sphere!
“Without your services as drone,
We should not be alive;
Your modest task, when well fulfilled,
Preserves the busy hive.
“Why underrate your blessed power?
Why leave your rightful throne
To choose a field of life that’s made
For working bees alone?”
Cried he, “But it is not enough,
My momentary task!
Let me do that and more beside:
To work is all I ask!”
Then fiercely rose the workers all,
For sorely were they vexed;
“O wretch!” they cried, “should this betide,
You would become unsexed !”
And yet he had not sighed for eggs,
Nor yet for royal mien;
He longed to be a worker bee,
But not to be a queen.
FEMALES.
THE female fox she is a fox;
The female whale a whale;
The female eagle holds her place
As representative of race
As truly as the male.
The mother hen doth scratch for her chicks,
And scratch for herself beside;
The mother cow doth nurse her calf,
Yet fares as well as her other half
In the pasture free and wide.
The female bird doth soar in air;
The female fish doth swim;
The fleet-foo
t mare upon the course
Doth hold her own with the flying horse —
Yea, and she beateth him!
One female in the world we find
Telling a different tale.
It is the female of our race,
Who holds a parasitic place
Dependent on the male.
Not so, saith she, ye slander me!
No parasite am I!
I earn my living as a wife;
My children take my very life.
Why should I share in human strife.
To plant and build and buy?
The human race holds highest place
In all the world so wide,
Yet these inferior females wive,
And raise their little ones alive,
And feed themselves beside.
The race is higher than the sex,
Though sex be fair and good;
A Human Creature is your state,
And to be human is more great
Than even womanhood!
The female fox she is a fox;
The female whale a whale;
The female eagle holds her place
As representative of race
As truly as the male.
A MOTHER’S SOLILOQUY.
You soft, pink, moving thing!
Young limbs that crave
Motion as free as zephyr-lifted wave;
Uneasy with the push of unlearned powers!
Exploring slowly through half-conscious hours;
With what rich new surprise and joy you feel
Your own will move yourself from head to heel!
So, let me swaddle you in bandage tight,
Dress you in wide, confining folds of white,
Cover you warmly, hold you close, and so
A mother’s instinct-guided love I’ll show!
Mysterious little frame!
Each organ new
And learning swiftly what it has to do!
Thy life’s bright stream — as yet so newly thine —
Refreshed by heaven’s sunlit air divine;
With what delight you breathe in rosy ease
The strengthening, restful, blossom-scented breeze!
So, let me wrap you in a blanket shawl,
And veil your face in woollen, when at all
You meet the air. Here in my arms is best
The curtained bedroom where your elders rest;
So shall I guard you from a draught, and so
A mother’s instinct-guided love I’ll show.
Young earnest mind at work!
Each sense attends
To teach you life’s approaching foes and friends;
Eye, ear, nose, tongue, and ever ready hand,
Eager to help you learn and understand.
What floods of happiness the day insures,