Read "Our East" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Our East, long looking backward over sea, / In loving study of what used to be, / Has grown to treat our West with the same scorn / England has had for us since we were born.
You'd think to hear this Eastern judgment hard / The West was just New England's back yard! / That all the West was made for, last and least, / Was to raise pork and wheat to feed the East!
A place to travel in, for rest and health, / A place to struggle in and get the wealth, / The only normal end of which, of course, / Is to return to its historic source!
Our Western acres, curving to the sun, / The Western strength whereby our work is done, / All Western progress, they attribute fair / To Eastern Capital invested there!
New England never liked old England's scorn. / Do they think theirs more easy to be borne? / Or that the East, Britain's rebellious child, / Will find the grandson, West, more meek and mild?
In union still our sovereignty has stood, / A union formed with prayer and sealed with blood. / We stand together. Patience, mighty West! / Don't mind this scolding from your last year's nest!