You women of today who fear so much <br />The women of the future, showing how <br />The dangers of her course are such and such– <br />What are you now? <br /> <br />Mothers and Wives and Housekeepers, forsooth! <br />Great names, you cry, full scope to rule and please, <br />Room for wise age and energetic youth!– <br />But are you these? <br /> <br />Housekeepers? Do you then, like those of yore, <br />Keep house with power and pride, with grace and ease? <br />No, you keep servants only! What is more– <br />You don't keep these! <br /> <br />Wives, say you? Wives! Blessed indeed are they <br />Who hold of love the everlasting keys, <br />Keeping your husbands' hearts! Alas the day! <br />You don't keep these! <br /> <br />And mothers? Pitying Heaven! Mark the cry <br />From cradle death-beds! Mothers on their knees! <br />Why, half the children born, as children, die! <br />You don't keep these! <br /> <br />And still the wailing babies come and go, <br />And homes are waste, and husband's hearts fly far; <br />There is no hope until you dare to know <br />The thing you are!<br /><br />Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/women-of-to-day/
