'As like the Woman as you can' - <br />(Thus the New Adam was beguiled) - <br />'So shall you touch the Perfect Man' - <br />(God in the Garden heard and smiled). <br />'Your father perished with his day: <br />'A clot of passions fierce and blind, <br />'He fought, he hacked, he crushed his way: <br />'Your muscles, Child, must be of mind. <br /> <br />'The Brute that lurks and irks within, <br />'How, till you have him gagged and bound, <br />'Escape the foullest form of Sin?' <br />(God in the Garden laughed and frowned). <br />'So vile, so rank, the bestial mood <br />'In which the race is bid to be, <br />'It wrecks the Rarer Womanhood: <br />'Live, therefore, you, for Purity! <br /> <br />'Take for your mate no gallant croup, <br />'No girl all grace and natural will: <br />'To work her mission were to stoop, <br />'Maybe to lapse, from Well to Ill. <br />'Choose one of whom your grosser make' - <br />(God in the Garden laughed outright) - <br />'The true refining touch may take, <br />'Till both attain to Life's last height. <br /> <br />'There, equal, purged of soul and sense. <br />'Beneficent, high-thinking, just, <br />'Beyond the appeal of Violence, <br />'Incapable of common Lust, <br />'In mental Marriage still prevail' - <br />(God in the Garden hid His face) - <br />'Till you achieve that Female-Male <br />'In Which shall culminate the race.'<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/as-like-the-woman-as-you-can/
