The Woman Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABC DADEDFGAFHIJKCLMAFN AAEE OAOFFAPAAALQRASTUTVA WVXTY IAZYYCYA2B2QACC2 AAY AD2YYFYQ E2FF2G2YDCAFAYH2D2AA YYYYI2D2FAYA YJ2K2YYL2AAA M2YN2YYALO2P2AI2Q2EY AY EQ2OL2OATFYE FYR2AFS2DDB2DT2DU2V2 DR2T2DP2DDDDDCAF2DDF W2ADTDAAACAADX2ZAQY2Go sleep my sweetie rest rest | A |
Oh soft little hand on mother's breast | A |
Oh soft little lips the din's mos' gone | B |
Over and done my dearie one | C |
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What do I think my brother Look at me | D |
You make me laugh sitting there solemneyed | A |
Full of opinions theories asking me | D |
Look with my baby at my breast to tell you | E |
Blessed big uncle what I think heaven help me | D |
Of this and that How could you think I wonder | F |
If baby lips were tugging at your flesh | G |
Draining your life to flower the world | A |
Dear brother | F |
It's beautiful that masculine pride of yours | H |
That runs the universe oh yes I know | I |
And longs to run it well You travel observe | J |
Experiment make laws and governments | K |
Build strange machines and masterfully summon | C |
The elemental powers to do your work | L |
Why so my girl here darling hope of the race | M |
May pillow her round head in a softer bed | A |
And dance more lightly by and by God bless her | F |
Into her lover's arms | N |
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Ah precious hungry still my bird | A |
Coo coo yes darling mother heard | A |
Coo coo and is it true | E |
Ever so true | E |
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What do I think | O |
If I were arrogant extravagant | A |
As men have never been what would I think | O |
Now in this hour of pride with all the future | F |
Safe in my arms Almost I might dare whisper | F |
That it's a woman's world do they not say it | A |
In the great book of science the new song | P |
Epic of truth Let me but hear the word | A |
In reverence almost a woman's world | A |
We hold the race within us we enfold | A |
Life in our arms we do great nature's work | L |
So nature hoards and wastes for us they say | Q |
Contrives our essence from her richer store | R |
And makes the haughty male out of the rest | A |
You among others with your politics | S |
Your grand reforms your dreams Hush do you dare | T |
Follow from seedling sea drift up to man | U |
Life's long procession noting everywhere | T |
How the encompassing mother mothers us | V |
And leaves your kind to shiver and drone and die | A |
Or else in pity the less vital tasks | W |
She gives you bids you serve us fight for us | V |
Even sing for us and cunningly contrive | X |
Is heavy with strange erections and the air | T |
Is noisy with ideas | Y |
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Oh yes I know | I |
You've got the upper hand you run the world | A |
Think so at least at many an icy hearth | Z |
You do your will with us and we poor chattels | Y |
Meekly we take our fortune at your hands | Y |
With never a royal word to prove us women | C |
Not slaves Why do we yield abase ourselves | Y |
If we are nature's favorites till even | A2 |
The mighty mother who made us in her image | B2 |
Rejects us winnows her worthless chaff away | Q |
Poor drudges eating the heart of the race for bread | A |
Poor puppets wilfully idle wilfully barren | C |
Teasers of men riff raff and refuse all | C2 |
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Why should we suffer this in a woman's world | A |
Good God I wonder sometimes hang my head | A |
For our surrender Ah we clasp too close | Y |
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The burden on our hearts nor look abroad | A |
Through our long windy night of passion and pain | D2 |
And still at dawn we rub our sleepy eyes | Y |
Here at the hearth with morning in our arms | Y |
Pink dimpled baby morning look at her | F |
Waiting for you our powerful delegates | Y |
To chase the night away | Q |
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But is it strange | E2 |
Think but a moment ask yourself my brother | F |
You who tell me to think what is our life | F2 |
Our woman's life Out of delicious youth | G2 |
Murmurous odorous vague full of delights | Y |
Half won half apprehended suddenly | D |
Like a still stream seized by the ruthless ocean | C |
We are drawn to the deeps Love marriage motherhood | A |
We are drowned in the physical sensual washed over | F |
With tide on tide of feeling warm and red | A |
The heart's blood of the world Little pitiless | Y |
Grip us within throttle us hold us down | H2 |
Through the long moons of feebleness and pain | D2 |
Little souls adrift gathering out of the void | A |
Bring us their nebulous dreams vague incoherent | A |
Far lightning flashes caught from flaming stars | Y |
No longer free no more our own or yours | Y |
No longer of this world but of all worlds | Y |
We are borne by the vast tide the tide of storms | Y |
Life irresistible universal deep | I2 |
Out of that no man's land that isle of pain | D2 |
Where birth and death fight in the dark together | F |
For the new soul the new little infant world | A |
Bearer of tidings saviour of the race | Y |
The child | A |
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Then wonder of wonders comes | Y |
The change All glowing from his great white throne | J2 |
God stoops to us we see the splendor we hear | K2 |
The thronging harps we feel here in our arms | Y |
His presence forming softly clasping close | Y |
Into a little tender human thing | L2 |
Our own ours ours Then suddenly for a moment | A |
We are swept away by joy magnificent | A |
And from high heaven watch the brave world go by | A |
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Read the old story it's our Bethlehem | M2 |
We couch in a manger bring forth young like beasts | Y |
In blood and shame and agony and then | N2 |
Rise with the living God safe in our arms | Y |
Well after that what are your grand affairs | Y |
Your brave ideas your dreams We scarcely heed | A |
Your world building we leave you to your work | L |
Praising your strength your imperious leadership | O2 |
Your craft that skims the sea and wings the | P2 |
And sends love words all round the girdled world | A |
Before these blue eyes almost locked in sleep | I2 |
Open to make the dawn Oh wonderful | Q2 |
Your power and cunning Should we envy you | E |
The triumph the high renown when in our arms | Y |
We hold all life even you the doer the present | A |
And this the ultimate future of our dreams | Y |
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Look she's asleep Isn't she a drop of dew | E |
Mirroring moonlight Or a velvet petal | Q2 |
Dropped from the almond tree all pearly pink | O |
That grows in Sahuaro Valley Or a spring | L2 |
Cool still where all the birds of the air shall drink | O |
Before it flows through the wide fields of the world | A |
The thick dark woods to wander who knows where | T |
Love led love nourished Oh be wise for her | F |
My brother Smooth her flowery scented ways | Y |
We give you this to do | E |
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But if you falter | F |
If blinded by the dust and smothered in spoils | Y |
You strive for trophies and forget the goal | R2 |
Must I not rise out of my sheltered seat | A |
At last When I can empty my arms of her | F |
Turn from the happy garden where I dwell | S2 |
And look over the world what do I see | D |
Under the cloud capped towers and pinnacles | D |
Cities I see where little children drudge | B2 |
The strength of the race away gaunt factories | D |
Where girls and boys are withered at the loom | T2 |
The wheel the furnace festering tenements | D |
Where babies tiny tender things like mine | U2 |
Are born in filth and darkness to endure | V2 |
Starved little wretched lives or die like rats | D |
While their pale mothers earn a pitiful dole | R2 |
By day and night in the one huddled room | T2 |
In sulphurous mines in roaring steam driven mills | D |
Where human hearts are broken on the | P2 |
wheel In jails where law wreaks a self righteous vengeance | D |
On the less masterful crimes in gaudy brothels | D |
Where daughters of the race yes mine and yours | D |
Once dewy in their mothers' arms like this | D |
Rot into slaves of lust in all dark places | D |
Unaware of love unvisited of the sun | C |
I count the agonies of our lorded world | A |
I see that delicate lovely thing called life | F2 |
My charge my woman's business God forgive me | D |
Crushed into clay mortared with blood and tears | D |
For modern civilization huge sky scraper | F |
To tower its many windowed stories on | W2 |
And through those glaring windows I behold | A |
A riot of waste a sickening glut an orgy | D |
Life turned once more to loathing and despair | T |
So though I bear my baby in my arms | D |
Now must I tread the crowded ways of the world | A |
Help me to rise give me your powerful hand | A |
My brother lead me forth to do my part | A |
Too long content to rest here in my garden | C |
Love sheltered Mea culpa I have sinned | A |
Vast is the world our steel blown power driven world | A |
Too huge a grand machine for half the race | D |
To build and run and guard from rust and filth | X2 |
While we the other half cling to the hearth | Z |
Selfishly guard our own and give no aid | A |
Through the long heat and burden of the day | Q |
Now we are summoned for the hour is struck | Y2 |
Harriet Monroe
(1)
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