An Empty Glass.
206
Never and never. While these walls of flesh
Shut in his spirit, while his being bends
Beneath its laws, man-made and man-enforced,
While the hereditary brand is stamped
Upon his mind, so long shall such as I
Be outlawed from the holiest heart of man.
So we have bred them. Ay, they shrug and say
Conventions are for women, made by them
And kept alive. Absurd! A woman's heart
Would brave the breaking of a thousand laws.
A glorious rebel, if but love were true.
But man! A something sits behind his heart
And flinches should the world elect to sneer
A code elastic for his pleasures. Yes,
And pathways broadly fashioned for himself,
And tolerance for all outside the law,
But for the woman who would share his name
Another standard. Ever in his mind
There stalks, though in the background, stark and stiff
That instinct of conventionality.
His gold must be hall-marked, his jewel set
In flawless orthodoxy. Ah! I know
That though I win his intellect and heart,
That though his real life is all mine own,
Yet I should miss that subtle something, hid
Shut in his spirit, while his being bends
Beneath its laws, man-made and man-enforced,
While the hereditary brand is stamped
Upon his mind, so long shall such as I
Be outlawed from the holiest heart of man.
So we have bred them. Ay, they shrug and say
Conventions are for women, made by them
And kept alive. Absurd! A woman's heart
Would brave the breaking of a thousand laws.
A glorious rebel, if but love were true.
But man! A something sits behind his heart
And flinches should the world elect to sneer
A code elastic for his pleasures. Yes,
And pathways broadly fashioned for himself,
And tolerance for all outside the law,
But for the woman who would share his name
Another standard. Ever in his mind
There stalks, though in the background, stark and stiff
That instinct of conventionality.
His gold must be hall-marked, his jewel set
In flawless orthodoxy. Ah! I know
That though I win his intellect and heart,
That though his real life is all mine own,
Yet I should miss that subtle something, hid
