<h2><SPAN name="page49"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>THE COST</h2>
<p class="poetry">God finished woman in the twilight hour<br/>
And said, ‘To-morrow thou shalt find thy place:<br/>
Man’s complement, the mother of the race—<br/>
With love the motive power—<br/>
The one compelling power.’</p>
<p class="poetry">All night she dreamed and wondered. With
the light<br/>
Her lover came—and then she understood<br/>
The purpose of her being. Life was good<br/>
And all the world seemed right—<br/>
And nothing was, but right.</p>
<p class="poetry">She had no wish for any wider sway:<br/>
By all the questions of the world unvexed,<br/>
Supremely loving and superbly sexed,<br/>
She passed upon her way—<br/>
Her feminine fair way.</p>
<p class="poetry"><SPAN name="page50"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
50</span>But God neglected, when He fashioned man,<br/>
To fuse the molten splendour of his mind<br/>
With that sixth sense He gave to womankind.<br/>
And so He marred His plan—<br/>
Ay, marred His own great plan.</p>
<p class="poetry">She asked so little, and so much she gave,<br/>
That man grew selfish: and she soon became,<br/>
To God’s great sorrow and the whole world’s shame,<br/>
Man’s sweet and patient slave—<br/>
His uncomplaining slave.</p>
<p class="poetry">Yet in the nights (oh! nights so dark and
long)<br/>
She clasped her little children to her breast<br/>
And wept. And in her anguish of unrest<br/>
She thought upon her wrong;<br/>
She knew how great her wrong.</p>
<p class="poetry">And one sad hour, she said unto her heart,<br/>
‘Since thou art cause of all my bitter pain,<br/>
I bid thee abdicate the throne: let brain<br/>
Rule now, and do his part—<br/>
His masterful, strong part.’</p>
<p class="poetry">She wept no more. By new ambition
stirred<br/>
Her ways led out, to regions strange and vast.<br/>
<SPAN name="page51"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>Men stood
aside and watched, dismayed, aghast,<br/>
And all the world demurred—<br/>
Misjudged her, and demurred.</p>
<p class="poetry">Still on and up, from sphere to widening
sphere,<br/>
Till thorny paths bloomed with the rose of fame.<br/>
Who once demurred, now followed with acclaim:<br/>
The hiss died in the cheer—<br/>
The loud applauding cheer.</p>
<p class="poetry">She stood triumphant in that radiant hour,<br/>
Man’s mental equal, and competitor.<br/>
But ah! the cost! from out the heart of her<br/>
Had gone love’s motive power—<br/>
Love’s all-compelling power.</p>
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