If any ask why there's no great She-Poet, Let me come live with me, and he will know it: If I'd indite an ode or mend a sonnet, I must go choose a dish or tie a bonnet; For she who serves in forced virginity Since I am wedded will not have me free; And those new flowers my garden is so rich in Must die for clammy odors of my kitchen. Yet I had chosen Dian's barrenness I'm not a full woman, and I can't be less, So could I state no certain truth for life, Can I survive and be my good man's wife? Yes! I will make the servant's cause my own That she in pity leave me hours alone So I will tend her mind and feed her wit That she in time have her own joy of it; And count it pride that not a sonnet's spoiled Lacking her choice betwixt the baked and boiled. So those young flowers my garden is so rich in Will blossom from the ashes of my kitchen! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MOTHER AND POET; TURIN, AFTER THE NEWS FROM GAETA, 1861 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING WINTER'S EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL HUGH SELWYN MAUBERLEY: 8. BRENNBAUM by EZRA POUND UPON HIS PICTURE by THOMAS RANDOLPH LINES WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY THE VISION OF SIN by ALFRED TENNYSON THE POWER OF MUSIC by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH |