For out of the strife which woman
Is passing through to-day,
A man that is more than human
Shall yet be born, I say.
A man in whose pure spirit
No dross of self will lurk;
A man who is strong to cope with wrong,
A man who is proud to work.
A man with hope undaunted,
A man with godlike power,
Shall come when he most is wanted,
Shall come at the needed hour.
He shall silence the din and clamor
Of clan disputing with clan,
And toil’s long fight with purse-proud might
Shall triumph through this man.
I know he is coming, coming,
To help, to guide, to save.
Though I hear no martial drumming,
And see no flags that wave.
But the great soul travail of woman,
And the bold free thought unfurled,
Are heralds that say he is on the way—
The coming man of the world.
Mourn not for vanished ages
With their great heroic men,
Who dwell in history’s pages
And live in the poet’s pen.
For the grandest times are before us,
And the world is yet to see
The noblest worth of this old earth
In the men that are to be.
A MAN’S REPENTANCE.
[Intended for recitation at club dinners.]
O-night when I came from the club at eleven,
Under the gaslight I saw a face—
A woman’s face! and I swear to heaven
It looked like the ghastly ghost of—Grace!
And Grace? why, Grace was fair; and I tarried,
And loved her a season as we men do.
And then—but pshaw! why, of course, she is married,
Has a husband and doubtless a babe or two.
She was perfectly calm on the day we parted;
She spared me a scene, to my great surprise.
She wasn’t the kind to be broken-hearted,
I remember she said, with a spark in her eyes.
I was tempted, I know, by her proud defiance
To make good my promises there and then.
But the world would have called it a mésalliance!
I dreaded the comments and sneers of men.