Women's Voices

Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am in nature none of these.

I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
The little nourishment I get.

In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.

My heart is like a singing bird
  Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
  That paddles in a purple sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
  Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
  In leaves and silver fleur-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
  Is come, my love, is come to me.

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee. 
If ever wife was happy in a man, 
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. 
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Wife and servant are the same,
But only differ in the name :
For when that fatal knot is ty'd,
Which nothing, nothing can divide :
When she the word obey has said,
And man by law supreme has made,
Then all that's kind is laid aside,
And nothing left but state and pride :
Fierce as an eastern prince he grows,
And all his innate rigour shows :
Then but to look, to laugh, or speak,
Will the nuptial contract break.
Like mutes, she signs alone must make,
And never any freedom take :
But still be govern'd by a nod,
And fear her husband as a God :
Him still must serve, him still obey,
And nothing act, and nothing say,
But what her haughty lord thinks fit,
Who with the power, has all the wit.
Then shun, oh ! shun that wretched state,
And all the fawning flatt'rers hate :
Value yourselves, and men despise :
You must be proud, if you'll be wise.

If ever hapless woman had a cause
To breath her plaintes into the open ayre,
And never suffer inward griefe to pause
Or seeke her sorrow shaken soules repayre
Then I for I have lost my onelie brother
Whose like this age can scarsly yeeld another.

Come therefore mournefull Muses and lament,
Forsake all wanton pleasing motions,
Bedew your cheekes, stil shal my teares be spent:
Yet still encreast with inundations,
For must I weepe, since I have lost my brother,
Whose like this age can scarsly yeeld another.

The cruell hand of murther cloyde with bloud
Lewdly deprivde him of his mortal life:
Woe the death attended blades that stoode,
In opposition gainst him in the strife,
Wherein he fell, and where I lost a brother,
Whose like this age can scarsly yeeld another.

Then unto griefe let me a Temple make,
And mourning dayly, enter sorrowes portes,
Knocke on my breast, sweete brother for thy sake,
Nature and love will both be my consorts,
And helpe me aye to wayle my onely brother,
Whose like this age can scarsly yeeld another.

We never said farewell, nor even looked
  Our last upon each other, for no sign
Was made when we the linkèd chain unhooked
  And broke the level line. 

And here we dwell together, side by side,
  Our places fixed for life upon the chart. 
Two islands that the roaring seas divide
  Are not more far apart.

Looking as I've looked before, straight down the heart
 . . . . . . . . . .

— The rest of this text is not
currently in the database but will be
added as soon as we obtain it. —

What inn is this
Where for the night
Peculiar traveller comes?
Who is the landlord?
Where the maids?
Behold, what curious rooms!
No ruddy fires on the hearth,
No brimming tankards flow.
Necromancer, landlord,
Who are these below?

Defiled is my name full sore
Through cruel spite and false report,
That I may say for evermore,
Farewell, my joy! adieu comfort! 
For wrongfully ye judge of me
Unto my fame a mortal wound,
Say what ye list, it will not be,
Ye seek for that can not be found

He shudders — feeling on the shaven spot
The probing wind, that stabs him to a thought
Of storm-drenched fields in a white foam of light,
And roads of his hill-town that leap to sight
Like threads of tortured silver ... while the guards —
Monstrous deft dolls that move as on a string,
In wonted haste to finish with this thing,
Turn faces blanker than asphalted yards.

They heard the shriek that tore out of its sheath
But as a feeble moan ... yet dared not breathe,
Who stared there at him, arching — like a tree
When the winds wrench it and the earth holds tight —
Whose soul, expanding in white agony,
Had fused in flaming circuit with the night.

Smile, Death, see I smile as I come to you
Straight from the road and the moor that I leave behind,
Nothing on earth to me was like this wind-blown space,
Nothing was like the road, but at the end there was a vision or a face
And the eyes were not always kind. 

Smile, death, as you fasten the blades to my feet for me,
On, on let us skate past the sleeping willows dusted with snow ;
Fast, fast down the frozen stream, with the moor and the road and the vision behind,
(Show me your face, why the eyes are kind !)
And we will not speak of life or believe in it or remember it as we go.