Explore "Burdened" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Genius, a man's weapon, a woman's burden. "-Lamartine.
Dear God! there is no sadder fate in life / Than to be burdened so that you can not / Sit down contented with the common lot / Of happy mother and devoted wife.
To feel your brain wild and your bosom rife / With all the sea's commotion; to be fraught / With fires and frenzies which you have not sought, / And weighed down with the wild world's weary strife;
To feel a fever always in your breast; / To lean and hear, half in affright, half shame, / A loud-voiced public boldly mouth your name; / To reap your hard-sown harvest in unrest, / And know, however great your meed of fame, / You are but a weak woman at the best.