To a Certain Gentleman
(' Women are often tempters to sexual sin and delight in it. . . A recent report of a female probation officer relates that some of the girls who, as we may say euphemistically' had gone astray,' owned to her that they enjoyed the life of the evil house.'
- The Case Against Woman Suffrage, published by the Man-Suffrage Association Opposed to Political Suffrage for Women.)
IT may be so, good sir, it may be so,
Not all who sin are tempted - that we know:
It may be darker things than this are true,
And yet, upon my soul, if I were you
A man, no longer young, at peace, secured
From all that tempting women have endured
Of poverty and ignorance and fear
And joy that make youth terrible and dear,
If I were you, before I took my pen
And wrote those words to hearten other men,
And give them greater sense of moral ease
In the long score of common sins like these,
If I were you, I would have held my hand
In fire.
- Ah, well; you would not understand.
poem by Alice Duer Miller
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After a Quarrel
WE have quarreled; ugly things have been said,
Bitter things, in a tone controlled, well-bred,
Temperate; we weighed our words, lest the lust
Of cruelty lose the edge of being just.
We have quarreled over a trifle, one of those trifles
That strike their roots to the very heart of each,
To the cold and earthy places where even love stifles,
And kindness and friendly habit cannot reach ;
Those unexplored vaults of the spirit, black, unknown,
Where each is a king, but a king ashamed, alone,
Afraid of the world, afraid of friend and foe.
Oh, human creatures must quarrel, my dear, I know;
But if we must, let's quarrel for something great,
For something final and dangerous - mastery; hate,
Freedom, or jealousy, virtue, death, or life:
For then two loves leap up on the wings of strife
Into the sun and air of their own souls' sight,
Locked together, joined, putting forth all their might
That love may survive or fail, or perish or win,
But perish not for a trifle. That is sin.
poem by Alice Duer Miller
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The Party
THE house is bright with lights and lights,
Like a palace in the Arabian Nights,
Lights in festoons and lights in clusters,
In chandeliers and crystal lustres;
And all the length of the stairs' broad way,
Tapestries green and pink and gray
Tell a story of ladies' bowers
Hung with apples and paved with flowers;
And beyond, an open arch discloses
An inner garden of palms and roses,
With lines of lilies against the walls,
And a fountain that falls - and waits - and falls.
And from the ballroom comes the beat
Of dance music and dancing feet,
And through the doorways of gold and glass
Figures of dancers pass and pass,
Lovely creatures in dripping laces,
And all have sad, unhopeful faces.
One person only yields to joy,
And he is a footman - a round-faced boy -
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poem by Alice Duer Miller
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Harbor
AND will you rest at last, storm-beaten spirit,
In this poor heart, who would your haven be,
Will you sink down at last, content to inherit
The common treaures of tranquillity?
Will you forget your high and fierce endeavor
The hinted island and the hidden seas,
Defeats, escapes, adventures, that forever
Left you more sad, and never more at ease?
When the west wind on summer evenings blowing
Brings to your ears the sound of sails that fill,
And moving ships eclipse your starlight, going
To lands unseen, and fates that beckon still;
When you shall see beneath the moon new risen,
The hissing wake of other vessels' foam,
Will not this land-locked harbor seem a prison
Where calms and shallows mock the name of home?
Ah, when your longing for the open ocean
Captures your heart, and bids you set your sail,
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poem by Alice Duer Miller
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Exile
I
At dead of night about the dying fire
They told a story how the dead appear;
And men, grown still with fear,
Forgot their old desire
For those who once were dear,
And shook and trembled lest their dead be near.
Alas, poor dead who were so sweet and human!
How are you grown a menace and a blight
A thing to shun, a thing of evil omen,
Stealing unwelcome through the halls of night?,
Who knows? perhaps yourselves are much affrighted,
And struggle back, remote and bodiless,
Fearful of sounds unheard, visions unsighted,
Black echoes, and the bitter loneliness.
But for me, in my heart is no dread
Of the coming again of the dead,
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poem by Alice Duer Miller
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The Snare of the Fowler
' Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.'
I WRITE for those, of whom I know a few,
Young, pretty, and a little bit flirtatious,
Who would do even more harm, if they knew
The science of the Art of being Gracious.
Science in any game, we know, will tell,
And those who play this ought to play it well.
First, do not doubt that rivals please a man
(Not too successful ones, 'tis understood) -
They flatter him as nothing you do can,
And give him certainty his taste is good;
And though, at times, a little in his way,
They make him find the house he haunts more gay.
Do not abuse the girls he likes - 'tis far
From wise - for he will only think you spiteful;
Praise them, and show how ludicrous they are,
And, ten to one, he'll find the joke delightful.
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poem by Alice Duer Miller
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The Heritage
ON summer evenings when the full moon shines
Serene and fair,
High in the crystal air,
On hillsides deep in birches and in pines,
Then in all hearts there stirs a hidden fire
Of hope, or memory;
Some their beloved dead more yearningly desire,
Some dream of loves to be,
Some weep their swift and sweet mortality.
But I remember only,
Long centuries ago,
A glen more dark and lonely
Than these which now I know;
The noise of waters flowing,
And faint, salt breezes blowing,
Ivy and myrtle growing,
As here they do not grow.
There, when the moon was at full we would come, we would come,
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poem by Alice Duer Miller
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Overheard In A Conservatory
HE (after a pause) : Dear, are you angry?
SHE: Yes, though not at you,
But at myself. Of course, we know it's true
That when a man respects a girl...
HE (interrupting) : I thought
You'd say that. It's the nonsense girls are taught.
You know, as well as I do, I revere
You more than any other woman, dear.
SHE (indignantly) : You'd not have done it to Elfrida Hood.
HE: Immortal gods! I shouldn't think I would.
SHE (haughtily) : If this but seems to you fit food for jest
I say no more. Silence were plainly best.
HE (very seriously) : Dear, if I jest, it is because I read
The hopelessness of aught that I could plead
In your stern eyes, which righteous wrath betray.
Were you another woman, I should say
That you were fair, and I, it seems, was mad,
But that the last long waltz that we had had :
Might very well have turned a wiser head.
A hundred things like this I might have said
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poem by Alice Duer Miller
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The Woman at the Cross-roads
(Her lover speaks.)
AN equal love between a man and woman,
This is the only charm to set us free,
And this the only omen
Of immortality.
Only for us the long, long war is over
Between our aspiring spirits,
And all the flesh inherits,
Because, dear saint, your soul no less
Has got a lover,
Than has your body's long slim loveliness.
Ah, my beloved, think not renunciation
Of such a love as ours
Will bring you any strengthening of your powers,
Or calm, or dignity, or peace of mind
To be compared with that which you will find
In love's full consummation.
Talk not to me of other, older ties,
Of duty, and of narrower destinies,
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poem by Alice Duer Miller
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Forsaking All Others Part 5
I
TRAINED nurses, trained nurses everywhere
Trained nurses by night, trained nurses by day -
In the corridors, on the stair,
Looking for towels, carrying a tray;
Saying, 'you mustn't,' 'you must,' 'you may.'
Smooth as to hair, stiff as to skirt,
Kind in a cool, impersonal way,
Angels of mercy, bright-eyed, alert,
Hard young angels, sent to avert
That older angel of dark despair
Stiff starched angels, a trifle curt
Trained nurses, trained nurses everywhere.
II
A WHITE figure spoke from the doorway
In a tone deliberately bright:
'Would you like to see the patient
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poem by Alice Duer Miller
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