POEMS
Life's outer surface must of needs be spread
As a table according to the hour
Of custom woman born and woman bred.
A woman is the country of a man.
Bronze woman, athlete, a fair amazon–
Her land's imperfect; the great fire spent,
She has no conscience kindliness or care
To draw the afternoon beneath her tent;
She thumbs the minutes like a bill-of-fare.
A woman is the country of a man.
A wrong to right with mercy made a Christian.
The gentle creature stirs a gentle feeling
Incapable of fury, tender, mild,
Touch can be delicate and healing-
A woman's wondering with child.
A woman is the country of a man.
Worship your marble goddess, rank pagan!
Nature·controls a great enough estate–
Needs no ally of image nor of thought,
Mistress of reckless destinies and fate
Her air's unlimited; the lake, her river caught.
A woman is the country of a man.
Protesting girl, passion of puritan
The outcast she of a conceived desire
Locked in a composition of the flesh,
Fury in tears with drum and shivered lyre
Pinched by the grooves of reason's horrid mesh....
A woman is the country of a man.
Arise, spirit from the grave, the loved one...
~
A body of granite rebukes the copper rose,
"There is no time, there is no end but death,
The truth endures, the truth no mortal knows
Nor the spotted lizard fast to his mother earth."
A woman is the country of a man.
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