Yes, God has made me a woman, And I am content to be Just what He meant, not reaching out For other things, since He
Who knows me best and loves me most has ordered this for me. A woman, to live my life out In quiet womanly ways, Hearing the far-off battle,
Seeing as through a haze The crowding, struggling world of men fight through their busy days. I am not strong or valiant, I would not join the fight
Or jostle with crowds in the highways To sully my garments white; But I have rights as a woman, and here I claim my right. The right of a rose to bloom
In its own sweet, separate way, With none to question the perfumed pink And none to utter a nay If it reaches a root or points, a thorn, as even a rose-tree may.
The right of the lady-birch to grow, To grow as the Lord shall please, By never a sturdy oak rebuked, Denied nor sun nor breeze,
For all its pliant slenderness, kin to the stronger trees. The right to a life of my own,— Not merely a casual bit Of somebody else's life, flung out
That, taking hold of it, I may stand as a cipher does after a numeral writ. The right to gather and glean What food I need and can
From the garnered store of knowledge Which man has heaped for man, Taking with free hands freely and after an ordered plan. The right — ah, best and sweetest!—
To stand all undismayed Whenever sorrow or want or sin Call for a woman's aid, With none to call or question, by never a look gainsaid.
I do not ask for a ballot; Though very life were at stake, I would beg for the nobler justice That men for manhood's sake
Should give ungrudgingly, nor withhold till I must fight and take. The fleet foot and the feeble foot Both seek the self-same goal, The weakest soldier's name is writ
On the great army-roll, And God, who made man's body strong, made too the woman's soul
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