Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOUJOURS LES FEMMES, by JOHN GODFREY SAXE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOUJOURS LES FEMMES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I think it was a persian king
Last Line: There was a woman in the case!
Subject(s): Women


I THINK it was a Persian king
Who used to say, that evermore
In human life each evil thing
Comes of the sex that men adore;
In brief, that nothing e'er befell
To harm or grieve our hapless race,
But, if you probe the matter well,
You'll find a woman in the case!

And then the curious tale is told
How, when upon a certain night
A climbing youngster lost his hold,
And, falling from a ladder's height,
Was found, alas! next morning dead,
His Majesty, with solemn face,
As was his wont, demurely said,
"Pray, who's the woman in the case?"

And how a lady of his court,
Who deemed the royal whim absurd,
Rebuked him, while she made report
Of the mischance that late occurred;
Whereat the king replied in glee,
"I've heard the story, please your Grace,
And all the witnesses agree
There was a woman in the case!

"The truth, your Ladyship, is this
(Nor is it marvelous at all),
The chap was climbing for a kiss,
And got, instead, a fatal fall.
Whener'er a man -- as I have said --
Falls from a ladder, or from grace,
Or breaks his faith, or breaks his head,
There is a woman in the case!"

For such a churlish, carping creed
As that his Majesty professed,
I hold him of unkingly breed, --
Unless, in sooth, he spoke in jest.
To me, few things have come to pass
Of good event, but I can trace, --
Thanks to the matron or the lass, --
Somewhere, a woman in the case.

Yet once, while gayly strolling where
A vast Museum still displays
Its varied wealth of strange and rare,
To charm, or to repel, the gaze, --
I -- to a lady (who denied
The creed by laughing in my face) --
Took up, for once, the Persian's side
About a woman in the case.

Discoursing thus, we came upon
A grim Egyptian mummy -- dead
Some centuries since. "'T is Pharaoh's son,
Perhaps; who knows?" the lady said.
No! on the black sarcophagus
A female name I stooped to trace.
Toujours les femmes! 'T is ever thus, --
There was a woman in the case!





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