Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman

Fashionable women in luxurious homes,
With men to feed them, clothe them, pay their bills,
Bow, doff the hat, and fetch the handkerchief;
Hostess or guest, and always so supplied
With graceful deference and courtesy;
Surrounded by their servants, horses, dogs, —
These tell us they have all the rights they want.

Successful women who have won their way
Alone, with strength of their unaided arm,
Or helped by friends, or softly climbing up
By the sweet aid of ‘woman’s influence’;
Successful any way, and caring naught
For any other woman’s unsuccess, —
These tell us they have all the rights they want.

Oh, dear!
The Christian virtues will disappear!
Nowhere on land or sea
Will be room for charity!
Nowhere, in field or city,
A person to help or pity!
Better for them, no doubt,
Not to need helping out
Of their old miry ditch.
But, alas for us, the rich!
For we shall lose, you see,
Our boasted charity!—
Lose all the pride and joy
Of giving the poor employ,
And money, and food, and love

A Sestina We are the smiling comfortable homes
With happy families enthroned therein,
Where baby souls are brought to meet the world,
Where women end their duties and desires,

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

Here is the House to hold me — cradle of all the race;
Here is my lord and my love, here are my children dear —
Here is the House enclosing, the dear-loved dwelling place;
Why should I ever weary for aught that I find not here?

Here for the hours of the day and the hours of the night;
Bound with the bands of Duty, rivetted tight;
Duty older than Adam — Duty that saw

The American public is patient,
The American public is slow,
The American public will stand as much
As any public I know.
We submit to be killed by our railroads,
We submit to be fooled by our press,
We can stand as much government scandal
As any folks going, I guess,

(After Kipling) When the traveller in the pasture meets the he-bull in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside;
But the milch cow, thus accosted, pins the traveller to the rail --
For the female of the species is deadlier than the male.

1.
One girl of many. Hungry from her birth
Half-fed. Half-clothed. Untaught of woman’s worth.
In joyless girlhood working for her bread.
At each small sorrow wishing she were dead,
Yet gay at little pleasures. Sunlight seems
Most bright & warm where it most seldom gleams.

The people people work with best
Are often very queer
The people people own by birth
Quite shock your first idea;
The people people choose for friends
Your common sense appall,
But the people people marry
Are the queerest folks of all.

There was once a little animal,
No bigger than a fox,
And on five toes he scampered
Over Tertiary rocks.
They called him Eohippus,
And they called him very small,
And they thought him of no value --
When they thought of him at all;

A Sestina You who are happy in a thousand homes,
Or overworked therein, to a dumb peace;

Are you content, you pretty three-years’ wife?
Are you content and satisfied to live
On what your loving husband loves to give,
And give to him your life?

Are you content with work, — to toil alone,
To clean things dirty and to soil things clean;
To be a kitchen-maid, be called a queen, —

Whatever is we only know
As in our minds we find it so;
No staring fact is half so clear
As one dim, preconceived idea --
No matter how the fact may glow.

Vainly may Truth her trumpet blow
To stir our minds; like heavy dough