My Rights.

Yes, God has made me a woman, And I am content to be Just what He meant, not reaching out For other things, since He Who knows me best and loves me most has ordered this for me. A woman, to live my life out In quiet womanly ways, Hearing the far-off battle, Seeing as through a haze The crowding, struggling world of men fight through their busy days. I am not strong or valiant, I would not join the fight Or jostle with crowds in the highways To sully my garments white; But I have rights as a woman, and here I claim my right. The right of a rose to bloom In its own sweet, separate way, With none to question the perfumed pink And none to utter a nay If it reaches a root or points, a thorn, as even a rose-tree may. The right of the lady-birch to grow, To grow as the Lord shall please, By never a sturdy oak rebuked, Denied nor sun nor breeze, For all its pliant slenderness, kin to the stronger trees. The right to a life of my own,— Not merely a casual bit Of somebody else's life, flung out That, taking hold of it, I may stand as a cipher does after a numeral writ. The right to gather and glean What food I need and can From the garnered store of knowledge Which man has heaped for man, Taking with free hands freely and after an ordered plan. The right—ah, best and sweetest!— To stand all undismayed Whenever sorrow or want or sin Call for a woman's aid, With none to call or question, by never a look gainsaid. I do not ask for a ballot; Though very life were at stake, I would beg for the nobler justice That men for manhood's sake Should give ungrudgingly, nor withhold till I must fight and take. The fleet foot and the feeble foot Both seek the self-same goal, The weakest soldier's name is writ On the great army-roll, And God, who made man's body strong, made too the woman's soul