For my own immediate people and a possible love and praise.
My mind is trodden in circles, tiresome, narrow and hard,
Useful, commonplace, private — simply a small back-yard;
And I the Mother of Nations! — Blind their struggle and vain! —
I cover the earth with my children — each with a housewife’s brain.
THE PROPOSAL
To be a wife!.... He asks of me
Life’s love, the heart’s long loyalty,
That I join his life to my own
And of all men choose him alone
The father of my child to be.
Beloved — yes! Together we
Can work, can grow, our trades agree. —
What! You demand domestic Joan?
And I must toil at your hearthstone
To be a wife?
Beloved! — listen — can’t you see
That wifehood is not cookery?
That mother’s love, that woman’s heart
In kitchen service need no part?
My work is chosen — yet I’m free
To be a wife.
ODE TO THE COOK
O Cook! Domestic Cook! no exhumed stone
In ancient dignity can match thine own.
Crete or Abydos fail to throw their light
So far adown our pro-social night.
Behind the bronze — behind chipped stone we look —
With first discovered fire we find the cook!
That fire, from hearthstone winning wide its place,
Now world-encircling service gives our race;
But thou alone remainest, all unmoved, alone
Tending thy pots around that primal stone
Where once the squaw made moccasins of hide.
We web the world in fabrics woven wide;
Where toiled she her poor shelter to erect
Now plans the engineer and architect;
Where the lone crone o’er naked babes held rule
Our children know the college and the school;
Art has arisen, science lights and leads;
Labor enriches life with wondrous deeds;
But while the ages urge us, shock on shock,
Thou standest, changeless as primeval rock —
Unchangeable, immovable — we see
Our race’s earliest infancy in thee!
Deaf patience and blind habit; and the dumb
Submission of long ages — these have come
To thee instead of progress. Must thou last
Forever? — type of Paleolithic past!
THE ETERNAL MOTHER TO THE BACHELOR MAID
Child! poor child! So little and so weak!
Lift your head and try to see
Down the ages back of thee —
Hear the ages speak!
Life! One life! Since first acknowledged good,
Links o’erlapping endlessly,
Embodied immortality —
That is motherhood!
Life! All Life! Outspreading like a fan;
But each line going back and back
Along the smooth, unbroken track
Where motherhood began.
Life! Our Life! This world of friend and foe —
Brothers all by ties of blood
Through our common motherhood
A million years ago!
Child! Blind child! We are the endless dream;
We, the fountain; we, the source;
We the guiders of the course
Of the unbroken stream.
Rise! Now rise! Take your appointed place!
Wise and strong as ne’er before —
Human, free, but all the more
The mother of the race!
TWO CALLINGS
I hear a deep voice through uneasy dreaming,
A deep, soft, tender, soul-beguiling voice;
A lulling voice that bids the dreams remain,
That calms my restlessness and dulls my pain,
That thrills and fills and holds me till in seeming
There is no other sound on earth — no choice.
“Home!” says the deep voice, “Home!” and softly singing
Brings me a sense of safety unsurpassed;
So old! So old! The piles above the wave —
The shelter of the stone-blocked shadowy cave —
Security of sun-kissed treetops swinging —
Safety and Home at last!
“Home” says the sweet voice, and warm Comfort rises,
Holding my soul with velvet-fingered hands;
Comfort of leafy lair and lapping fur,
Soft couches, cushions, curtains, and the stir
Of easy pleasures that the body prizes,
Of soft swift feet to serve the least commands.
I shrink — half rise — and then it murmurs “Duty!”
Again the past rolls out — a scroll unfurled:
Allegiance and long labor due my lord —
Allegiance in an idleness abhorred —
I am the squaw — the slave — the harem beauty —
I serve and serve the handmaid of the world.
My soul revels — but hark! a new note thrilling,
Deep, deep, past finding — I protest no more;
The voice says “Love!” and all those ages dim
Stand glorified and justified in him,
I bow — I kneel — the woman soul is willing —
“Love is the law. Be still! Obey! Adore!”
And then — ah then! The deep voice murmurs “Mother!”
And all life answers from the primal sea;
A mingling of all lullabies, a peace
That asks no understanding; the release
Of nature’s holiest power — who seeks another?
Home? Home is Mother — Mother, Home, to me.
“Home!” says the deep voice; “Home and Easy Pleasure!”
Safety and Comfort Laws of Life well kept!
“Love!” and my heart rose thrilling at the word;
“Mother!” it nestled down and never stirred;
“Duty and Peace and Love beyond all measure!
Home! Safety! Comfort! Mother!” — and I slept.
II
A bugle call! A clear keen ringing cry
Relentless — eloquent — that found the ear
Through fold on fold of slumber, sweet, profound —
A widening wave of universal sound,
Piercing the heart — filling the utmost sky —
I wake — I must wake! Hear — for I must hear!
“The World! The World is crying! Hear its needs!”
Home is a part of life — I am the whole!
Home is the cradle — shall a whole life stay
Cradled in comfort through the working day?
I too am Home — the Home of all high deeds —
The only Home to hold the human soul!
“Courage! — the front of conscious life!” it cried;
“Courage that dares to die and dares to live!
Why should you prate of safety? Is life meant
In ignominious safety to be spent?
Is Home best valued as a place to hide? —
Come out, and give what you are here to give!”
“Strength and Endurance! of high action born!”
And all that dream of Comfort shrank away,
Turning its fond, beguiling face aside —
So Selfishness and Luxury and Pride
Stood forth revealed, till I grew fierce with scorn,
And burned to meet the dangers of the day.
“Duty! Ah Duty! Duty! Mark the word!”
I turned to my old standard. It was sent
From hem to hem, and through the gaping place
I saw at last its meaning and its place
I saw my undone duties to the race
Of man — neglected — spurned — how had I heard
That word and n
ever dreamed of what it meant!
“Duty! Unlimited — eternal — new!”
And I? My idol on a petty shrine
Fell as I turned, and Cowardice and Sloth
Fell too, unmasked, false Duty covering both —
While the true Duty, all-embracing, high,
Showed the clear line of noble deed to do.
And then the great voice rang out to the sun,
And all my terror left me, all my shame,
While every dream of joy from earliest youth
Came back and lived! — that joy unhoped was truth,
All joy, all hope, all truth, all peace grew one,
Life, opened clear, and Love? Love was its name!
So when the great word “Mother!” rang once more,
I saw at last its meaning and its place,
Not the blind passion of the brooding past,
But Mother — the World’s Mother — came at last,
To love as she had never loved before —
To feed and guard and teach the human race.
The world was full of music clear and high!
The world was full of light! The world was free!
And I? Awake at last, in joy untold
Saw Love and Duty broad as life unrolled —
Wide as the earth — unbounded as the sky —
Home was the World — the World was Home to me!
LIMITING LIFE
“Life is too numerous!” said he,
And rushed into the strife,
With fang and beak and talon red,
With horn and hoof and butting head,
To limit life.
“Life is too numerous,” said he,
And wilder rose the strife;
With crimson war-clouds rolling dense —
Vice, poverty and pestilence —
To limit life.
“Life grows too numerous,” saith she
Who is not built for strife;
“Through me it cometh, swift or slow;
I will decide how fast to grow —
To limit life.”
A VANDAL
“M. Lane. Brewster. New York.”
Deserves some local fame,
For having with malice a forethought
Deliberately carved his name
On the half-inch-wide
Thin strip at the side
Of a day-coach window frame.
On the New York Central and Hudson,
Car seventeen fifty-nine,
You may read, with your head turned sideways,
That soul-betraying sign,
Fourth right, my friend,
As you face the end
Where the twin inscriptions shine.
Idle and empty-headed,
Without book or paper or game,
He saw something smooth and shiny,
And scarred it with his name;
With a knife or a pin
He scratched it in
On the varnished window frame.
THE RABBIT, THE RHINOCEROS AND I
The Spirit of Philosophy descended
In a manner metaphysical and free,
Her Aegis she impartially extended
On the Rabbit, the Rhinoceros and me.
And I stopped upon my Walk
To hear the Rabbit talk,
And the elderly Rhinoceros agree.
The Rabbit was coherently upbraiding
The fate that made his soft and tender frame;
And the foes that were eternally invading
The furry guards and borders of the same.
“If my leap was ten times longer —
If my teeth were ten times stronger—”
Said he thought he’d turn the tables in the game.
His companion heard these mournful lucubrations,
And remarked that he was practical and old;
“It’s a pity that we all have limitations,
But it doesn’t do us any good to scold.
Our shape and size are given
By conditions that we live in,
As the shape and size of jelly in a mould.
“Evolutionary forces have assisted
In more years than a Rhinoceros can tell
To make my hide so horrid thick and twisted —
To give you fur — and enemies, as well.
What life we have was made
In past ages, I’m afraid —
We can only grin and bear it for a spell.”
“May I join your causerie?” I asked politely,
“May I add my jeremiad to the tale?”
I then discoursed on Human Nature tritely,
In a melancholy, modulated wail.
Said “This world’s a vale of tears,
And man’s little space of years
Can only add more tears to fill the vale.”
They turned upon me then in wrath outrageous,
“The fault is yours,” they cried, “if you are sad!”
We can not choose surroundings advantageous;
We suffer helpless, helpless we are glad.
Environment to us is fate —
But you can always change the slate,
And make the things that make you good and bad.”
The Spirit of Philosophy departed;
The Rabbit and Rhinoceros were dumb.
But I became a little lighter hearted,
I saw a heaven in sight and wanted some.
If our conditions make us sad —
And new conditions may be had —
What hinders us from making Kingdom Come?
THE OYSTER AND THE STARFISH
Sat a fat & juicy oyster in a large & lumpy shell,
Came a sucker-fingered starfish who digested oysters well.
When the oyster comprehended that the Starfish was on hand
He contracted his one muscle, like the strongest rubber band.
Slow the Starfish spread his fingers sitting on the Oyster’s back,
Found the shell quite hard & solid, couldn’t feel the smallest crack.
So he set his suckers sucking, in no haste & with no doubt;
Sat and sucked and pulled and waited for the Oyster to give out.
Time will weary any muscle, and the suckers, rows and rows,
Pulled the shell a little open, made a crack he could not close.
Though the Starfish could not really make the Oyster open wide,
Through the crack he poked his stomach, and digested him inside.
Safe from all external dangers yet the oyster surely died,
While that soft extruded stomach ate him in his own inside.
But that Oyster, food for Starfish, did no suicidal sin,
Did not try to Oysterize him! did not ask him to come in!
THE WEEPING NAUTILUS
I.
Upon a broad and placid beach,
Beside the billows’ swell,
I mused upon the human race
Which doeth all things well;
When I heard a chambered nautilus
A-weeping in his shell.
II.
In fair boat of radiant pearl,
With silver sail and oar,
On sunlit waves we floated there,
A little way from shore;
And yet that chambered nautilus
Did sob and sorrow sore.
III.
My heart went out in sympathy
Across the shallow sea;
Thought I, “with form so beautiful
And life so fair and free,
A thing to make this creature weep
An awful thing must be!”
IV.
So I asked him most respectfully,
With interest sincere.
If he would tell me why he wept,
When all things did appear
So perfectly harmonious,
So bright and calm and clear.
V.
Then he spoke in
woeful accents,
As did such grief behoove,
Waving his lovely tentacles
From softly silvered groove —
“I am the saddest thing alive
Because I have to move!”
VI.
“To move!” said I; “to grow, you mean —
The lot of living things!
But you grow in a pearly shell
While others grow in wings,
In legs, fins, tails, beaks, horns, and scales,
Proboscises, and stings!”
VII.
“No, no!” he cried, “it isn’t that
Which makes my grief and gloom,
In spite of summer sea and sky
And irridescent bloom —
But when I grow I have to move,
And build another room!
VIII.
“My little rooms! my little rooms!
Each dear deserted shell!
So sweetly smooth, so softly bright,
And fitting me so well!
I sob and grieve for each I leave
But still I grow and swell!
IX.
I never can revisit them!
Each step has made a wall!
I never can grow backward,
And be young again and small!
I have to rise — to grow — to move!
And I don’t like it all!”
X.
I rose and wandered on a space,
With thoughts too deep to tell;
And still, through all my pride of race,
Above the billowy swell,
I heard the chambered nautilus
A-weeping in his shell!
THE DAILY SQUID
The Squid he has no implements
To fight or run or think;
He has no fins, no wings, no feet,
To swim, fly, run, or sink;
When he’s attacked he can but hide
In self-emitted ink.
SOME NORDICS
Swollen with pride of race they stand,
Exulting in their little land,
The little tribe from whence they came;
Hoping to dominate the earth
With one high power, one highest worth,
The Nordic name.
Only by what a race achieves,
By the world-useful works it leaves,
Can any human stock lay claim
In the long list of those who give
The lasting gains by which we live
To well-won fame.
And these? One branch of that great race
Winning indelible disgrace,
The whole world’s blame;
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 188
