The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

What an abyss for woman! Lo, what a depth to fall!
She who might be the helper, angel and guide of all,
Changed to a frenzied creature, abject, lunatic, wild,—
Something of hell in her madness, something in her of a child!

II

Curses on those who did it, the elder women who taught
English girls base lessons, poisoning soul and thought!
Cursed be these, the liars, who troubled the young girl's creed—
Told her that men were reptiles, reptiles they who mislead.

III

Cursed be these who, knowing nothing of love or of man,
First the pitiful story of wrong and deceit began!
What can set right or atone for it? Nothing, till hell's waves whirl
Round the throat of a woman who lies to the soul of a girl.

288

IV

Feminine tongues, snake-skilful, have brought us even to this.
Women who never have known the love in a strong man's kiss,
Never have known sweet passion that lights the land and the sea,
Never have known, nor will know it, while stars and the sun shall be,—

V

These, these most, these only, have changed the current of life
To a torrent of blood-red waters, and changed love's joy to a strife:
Mixing their base ambitions, their lust and anger and greed,
With the thoughts of flower-white girlhood, with our maidens' pure sweet creed.

VI

“Man is only a cipher”—so they, insolent, say.
“Ours is the sex victorious. Ours is the world of to-day.”
So they write foul lustful stories, and they poison England's life;
And they leave no English maiden fit for an English wife.

289

VII

In the old glad days our women were noblest of all upon earth:
Purest, happiest, sweetest; history's fairest birth.
But now they are changed and defiant. They have learned from the lips that lie
That man is a brute and a satyr, developed straight from the stye.

VIII

That is the teaching pestilent of the elder women whose lies
Have saddened the sun of England, and clouded the English skies.
Woman was once a flower, a sunlit beautiful rose.
Now she carries a dog-whip, and slashes at friends and foes.

IX

War between woman and woman, mad war, war to the knife,
War between woman and mankind, war between husband and wife,

290

This would result from the contest. Think you it turns upon votes?
The suffragettes' flag, Defiance, in a fiercer hurricane floats.

X

Contempt for the old traditions, scorn of love and of man,
Hate of the older England, the merciless creed of a clan.
A strange-eyed group hysterical, women in nought but the name,
This it will mean for England—and ours, our own, is the shame.

XI

Shame on the manhood of England, that has let this dark thing rise
To strength and to vehement boasting beneath unvigilant eyes!
Shame on the manhood of England, that has let this come to pass!
Shame on the men of putty, seduced by the women of brass!

XII

Man was the leader of woman: she looked to the man to lead.

291

She loved and obeyed and trusted. Love was her soul's one creed.
He has failed in his sacredest duty. The moment he flinched and fell
Woman became the leader, and is leading her sex to hell.

XIII

Certain the end is, certain. If a virile race should arise,
The sceptre will pass from our people, abject before our eyes.
Never a nation prospers, not even the nation of bees,
Where the feminine hosts are the leaders and the males are dwarfed and at ease.

XIV

“Read not the older authors. Let Charles Dickens alone.
His women are namby-pamby: abject slaves we disown.

292

Be not deceived by Shakespeare. Milton? What was he worth?
Rather study Lake Harris: a seer and a god upon earth.

XV

“Man is a lust organic, a tyrant lewd and supreme.
Woman no more shall be subject. Women, wake from your dream!
America's girls shall be leaders. The scorpion, man, shall be trod
Deep underfoot for ever, by woman the star-crowned God.

XVI

“Keep but the stripes for mankind—vitriol, whips and blows.
The stars are wanted for woman, who, scorning a slave's repose,
Arises, terrible, vengeful, a Mother with eyes of flame,
Driving her spouse before her, a man-form timid and tame.

XVII

“Woman must be the chooser, the arbiter. Hers is the word

293

That gives to her husband his mandate, bids passion speak and be heard.
If man should rebel when we treat him—much as a cat or a tyke—
The women who spit at policemen will never be slow to strike.

XVIII

“We have lost the sense of smelling. We leave it to man who knows
The scent of a rose from an onion, the scent of a shrimp from a rose.
In our progress onward and upward, the animal gifts we resign:
And garlic is even as violets, and drainage is like woodbine.

XIX

“Our lips are not eager for rapture of passion, for this we scorn.

294

Two embraces, two only, if two babes have to be borne!
We are passionless, vigilant, virgin, loud-tongued, sexless, austere.
Do you doubt us? Hand us a dog-whip. That argument makes all clear.”

XX

Such are the words of woman, literal, monstrous, fact,
To man and to woman her sister, the prelude to monstrous act.
Cursed be all such women! Blessed the first that goes
Along the street in the sunshine, sweet, a girl and a rose!

“Man is a tyrannous, organic lust.” —Thomas Lake Harris.

See Mrs. Swiney's book, The Awakening of Women. The authoress maintains that women have largely lost the sense of smell, and are consequently diviner and higher beings than man: smell being, in her opinion, the lowest and most animal of the senses, and therefore the first sense lost in an upward evolution.

Passion is only admissible, as a means for the procreation of children, according to the repulsive teaching of the neo-American female physiologists.