Explore "Blind" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Whatever a man may think or feel / He can tell to the world and it hears aright; / But it bids the woman conceal, conceal, / And woe to the thoughts that at last ignite. / She may serve up gossip or dwell on fashion, / Or play the critic with speech unkind, / But alas for the woman who speaks with passion! / For the world is blind-for the world is blind.
It is woman who sits with her starved desire, / And drinks to sorrow in cups of tears; / She reads by the light of her soul on fire / The secrets of love through lonely years: / But out of all she has felt or heard / Or read by the glow of her soul's white flame, / If she dare but utter aloud one word- / How the world cries shame! -how the world cries shame!
It cannot distinguish between the glow / Of a gleaming star, in the sky of gold, / Or a spent cigar in the dust below- / 'Twixt unclad Eve or a wanton bold; / And ever if woman speaks what she feels / (And feels consistent with God's great plan) / It has cast her under its juggernaut wheels, / Since the world began-since the world began.