A Son Speaks

Mother, sit down, for I have much to say     Anent this widespread ever-growing theme     Of woman and her virtues and her rights.     I left you for the large, loud world of men,     When I had lived one little score of years.     I judged all women by you, and my heart     Was filled with high esteem and reverence     For your angelic sex; and for the wives,     The sisters, daughters, mothers of my friends     I held but holy thoughts.    To fallen stars     (Of whom you told me in our last sweet talk,     Warning me of the dangers in my path)     I gave wide pity as you bade me to,     Saying their sins harked back to my base sex.     Now listen, mother mine:    Ten years have passed     Since that clean-minded and pure-bodied youth,     Thinking to write his name upon the stars,     Went from your presence.    He returns to you     Fallen from his altitude of thought,     Hiding deep scars of sins upon his soul,     His fair illusions shattered and destroyed.     And would you know the story of his fall?     He sat beside a good man's honoured wife     At her own table.    She was beautiful     As woods in early autumn.    Full of soft     And subtle witcheries of voice and look -     His senior, both in knowledge and in years.     The boyish admiration of his glance     Was white as April sunlight when it falls     Upon a blooming tree, until she leaned     So close her rounded body sent quick thrills     Along his nerves.    He thought it accident,     And moved a little; soon she leaned again.     The half-hid beauties of her heaving breast     Rising and falling under scented lace,     The teasing tendrils of her fragrant hair,     With intermittent touches on his cheek,     Changed the boy's interest to a man's desire.     She saw that first young madness in his eyes     And smiled and fanned the flame.    That was his fall;     And as some mangled fly may crawl away     And leave his wings behind him in the web,     So were his wings of faith in womanhood     Left in the meshes of her sensuous net.     The youth, forced into sudden manhood, went     Seeking the lost ideal of his dreams.     He met, in churches and in drawing-rooms,     Women who wore the mask of innocence     And basked in public favour, yet who seemed     To find their pleasure playing with men's hearts,     As children play with loaded guns.    He heard     (Until the tale fell dull upon his ears)     The unsolicited complaints of wives     And mothers all unsatisfied with life,     While crowned with every blessing earth can give     Longing for God knows what to bring content,     And openly or with appealing look     Asking for sympathy.    (The first blind step     That leads from wifely honour down to shame,     Is ofttimes hid with flowers of sympathy.)     He saw proud women who would flush and pale     With sense of outraged modesty if one     Spoke of the ancient sin before them, bare     To all men's sight, or flimsily conceal     By veils that bid adventurous eyes proceed,     Charms meant alone for lover and for child.     He saw chaste virgins tempt and tantalise,     Lure and deny, invite -and then refuse,     And drive men forth half crazed to wantons' arms.     Mother, you taught me there were but two kinds     Of women in the world -the good and bad.     But you have been too sheltered in the safe,     Old-fashioned sweetness of your quiet life,     To know how women of these modern days     Make licence of their new-found liberty.     Why, I have been more tempted and more shocked     By belles and beauties in the social whirl,     By trusted wives and mothers in their homes,     Than by the women of the underworld     Who sell their favours.    Do you think me mad?     No, mother; I am sane, but very sad.     I miss my boyhood's faith in woman's worth -     Torn from my heart, by 'good folks' of the earth.