Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE POET'S JOURNAL: A WOMAN, by BAYARD TAYLOR Poet's Biography First Line: She is a woman: therefore, I a man Last Line: But man's true mother, and his equal wife. Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard Subject(s): Dreams; Faith; Life; Love; Women; Nightmares; Belief; Creed | ||||||||
I. SHE is a woman: therefore, I a man, In so much as I love her. Could I more, Then I were more a man. Our natures ran Together, brimming full, not flooding o'er The banks of life, and evermore will run In one full stream until our days are done. II. She is a woman, but of spirit brave To bear the loss of girlhood's giddy dreams; The regal mistress, not the yielding slave Of her ideal, spurning that which seems For that which is, and, as her fancies fall, Smiling: the truth of love outweighs them all. III. She looks through life, and with a balance just Weighs men and things, beholding as they are The lives of others: in the common dust She finds the fragments of the ruined star: Proud, with a pride all feminine and sweet, No path can soil the whiteness of her feet. IV. The steady candor of her gentle eyes Strikes dead deceit, laughs vanity away; She hath no room for petty jealousies, Where Faith and Love divide their tender sway. Of either sex she owns the nobler part: Man's honest brow and woman's faithful heart. V. She is a woman, who, if Love were guide, Would climb to power, or in obscure content Sit down: accepting fate with changeless pride -- A reed in calm, in storm a staff unbent: No pretty plaything, ignorant of life, But Man's true mother, and his equal wife. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...UNHOLY SONNET 4 by MARK JARMAN QUIA ABSURDUM by ROBINSON JEFFERS GOING TO THE HORSE FLATS by ROBINSON JEFFERS SONNET TO FORTUNE by LUCY AIKEN JONATHAN EDWARDS IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS by ROBERT LOWELL RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION by MINA LOY BEDOUIN [LOVE] SONG by BAYARD TAYLOR NATIONAL ODE; INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA by BAYARD TAYLOR |
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