WOMAN TO MAN.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Poems of Power, 1901

"Woman is man's enemy, rival and competitor." 
                  — JOHN J. INGALLS.

You do but jest, sir, and you jest not well,
How could the hand be enemy of the arm, 
Or seed and sod be rivals! How could light 
Feel jealousy of heat, plant of the leaf
Or competition dwell 'twixt lip and smile?
Are we not part and parcel of yourselves?
Like strands in one great braid we intertwine
And make the perfect whole. You could not be,
Unless we gave you birth; we are the soil
From which you sprang, yet sterile were that soil
Save as you planted. (Though in the Book we read
One woman bore a child with no man's aid
We find no record of a man-child born
Without the aid of woman! Fatherhood
Is but a small achievement at the best
While motherhood comprises heaven and hell.)
This ever-growing argument of sex
Is most unseemly, and devoid of sense.
Why waste more time in controversy, when
There is not time enough for all of love,
Our rightful occupation in this life.
Why prate of our defects, of where we fail
When just the story of our worth would need
Eternity for telling, and our best 
Development comes ever thro' your praise,
As through our praise you reach your highest self.
Oh! had you not been miser of your praise
And let our virtues be their own reward 
The old established, order of the world 
Would never have been changed. Small blame is ours 
For this unsexing of ourselves, and worse 
Effeminizing of the male. We were 
Content, sir, till you starved us, heart and brain. 
All we have done, or wise, or otherwise 
Traced to the root, was done for love of you. 
Let us taboo all vain comparisons, 
And go forth as God meant us, hand in hand, 
Companions, mates and comrades evermore; 
Two parts of one divinely ordained whole.

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