Explore "A Son Speaks" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
MOTHER, sit down, for I have much to say / Anent this widespread ever-growing theme / Of woman and her virtues and her rights.
I left you for the large, loud world of men, / When I had lived one little score of years. / I judged all women by you, and my heart / Was filled with high esteem and reverence / For your angelic sex; and for the wives, / The sisters, daughters, mothers of my friends / I held but holy thoughts. To fallen stars / (Of whom you told me in our last sweet talk, / Warning me of the dangers in my path) / I gave wide pity as you bade me to, / Saying their sins harked back to my base sex.