REASSURANCE (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)

Can you imagine nothing better, brother, / Than that which you have always had before? / Have you been so content with "wife and mother," / You dare hope nothing more?

Have you forever prized her, praised her, sung her, / The happy queen of a most happy reign? / Never dishonored her, despised her, flung her / Derision and disdain?

Go ask the literature of all the ages! / Books that were written before women read! / Pagan and Christian, satirists and sages -- / Read what the world has said.

There was no power on earth to bid you slacken / The generous hand that painted her disgrace! / There was no shame on earth too black to blacken / That much-praised woman-face.

Eve and Pandora! -- always you begin it -- / The ancients called her Sin and Shame and Death. / "There is no evil without woman in it," / The modern proverb saith.

She has been yours in uttermost possession -- / Your slave, your mother, your well-chosen bride -- / And you have owned in million-fold confession, / You were not satisfied.

Peace then! Fear not the coming woman, brother. / Owning herself, she giveth all the more. / She shall be better woman, wife and mother / Than man hath known before.