And There My Little Doves Did Sit

A Woman Cannot Do The Thing She Ought, Which Means Whatever Perfect Thing She Can, In Life, In Art, In Science, But She Fears To Let The Perfect Action Take Her Part And Rest There: She Must Prove What She Can Do Before She Does It, -- Prate Of Woman's Rights, Of Woman's Mission, Woman's Function, Till The Men (who Are Prating, Too, On Their Side) Cry, A Woman's Function Plainly Is... To Talk. Poor Souls, They Are Very Reasonably Vexed!

We All Have Known Good Critics, Who Have Stamped Out Poet's Hopes; Good Statesmen, Who Pulled Ruin On The State; Good Patriots, Who, For A Theory, Risked A Cause; Good Kings, Who Disemboweled For A Tax; Good Popes, Who Brought All Good To Jeopardy; Good Christians, Who Sat Still In Easy-chairs; And Damned The General World For Standing Up. Now, May The Good God Pardon All Good Men!

And Wilt Thou Have Me Fashion Into Speech The Love I Bear Thee, Finding Words Enough, And Hold The Torch Out, While The Winds Are Rough, Between Our Faces, To Cast Light On Each? - I Dropt It At Thy Feet. I Cannot Teach My Hand To Hold My Spirits So Far Off From Myself--me--that I Should Bring Thee Proof In Words, Of Love Hid In Me Out Of Reach. Nay, Let The Silence Of My Womanhood Commend My Woman-love To Thy Belief, - Seeing That I Stand Unwon, However Wooed, And Rend The Garment Of My Life, In Brief, By A Most Dauntless, Voiceless Fortitude, Lest One Touch Of This Heart Convey Its Grief.

Pan Is Dead! Great Pan Is Dead! Pan, Pan Is Dead!

We Get No Good By Being Ungenerous, Even To A Book, And Calculating Profits--so Much Help By So Much Reading. It Is Rather When We Gloriously Forget Ourselves, And Plunge Soul-forward, Headlong, Into A Book's Profound, Impassioned For Its Beauty, And Salt Of Truth-- 'tis Then We Get The Right Good From A Book.