The Freedom of the Women
By Louise Collier Wilcox
(In “The Woman’s Journal.”)
When woman knew that on her strength devolved the care of race,
She crept into her cave to sleep and told her man to face
The prowling outer dangers, and the dark and fearful odds,
The thunder, beasts, and lightning, and the wrath of all the gods;
For at her heart she carried the future and its cares,
And the freedom that she needed was more precious far then theirs.