In this our world

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

And what is this brought as atonement for these?

For our blind misdirection, our death and disease;

For the grief of our childhood, the loss and the wrong;

For the pain of our childhood, the agony strong;

For the shame and the sin and the sorrow thereof—

Dare you say it is love?

Love? First give freedom,—the right of the brute!

The air with its sunshine, the earth with its fruit.

Love? First give wisdom,—intelligent care,

That shall help to bring out all the good that is there.