Papers from Overlook-House

Oh man, o'erlook thy wife's unceasing care
How her dear love doth follow everywhere,
Forget her, as she stood beside thy bed,
When the long sickness bowed thy weary head,
Watching, – to her all sacrifice as light,
As 'tis to stars to watch o'er earth at night.

Ah 'tis most noble, manly, not to know
How light o'er all doth from her presence flow,
And when a quicker word in haste doth fall,
To speak of her, as if strife was her all.
What could she say, if she replied to thee,
Told to the world her secret misery,
Showed the sad wounds that thy neglect had wrought,
Where but a look the healing balm had brought.

One, at this hour, lies on the bed of death,
A neighbor lovely as the morning's breath.
Slowly she dies, – and with prophetic eye
Tracing the course of human destiny,
I see a home she brightened, hence so lone,
Its calm day darkened, and its music gone;

The young, the old with anxious cares opprest,
Their hearts, like shadows feeling for their rest
On the green sward, where flickering sunbeams glide,
My tears can fall, and standing by thy side,
I know a woman's place, a woman's worth, —
I know the gift of God in her to earth.

Thou will not let thy wife become to thee,
That which her nature claims that she should be.
Thou hast a cold dead life from her apart,
Thou art not moulded by her gentler heart,
Else by her sweet, pure thoughts thou wert more true
More wise, more bold each noble deed to do.

Of woman's weakness dost thou speak? Thou'lt find
Her strength indeed, by this just bond of mind.
You are the weak one, cannot grasp her might,
Forever boasting that thy wrong is right.

Without her soul to thine, the page is dull
Of all life's work, – and with this it is full
Of all illumined splendors, as of old,
The precious writings were adorned with Gold.

Ah view that cell so dark! – the felon there,
With glaring eye that speaks his vast despair.
He once in princely splendor lived his day,
Lord of the street, a monarch in his way.
His costly revels gained an envied fame,
Where shallow fops, and women like them came.
Oh man! how couldst thou thus thy God defy?
Could riches pay thee for thy long-told lie?

If thou hadst said thy secret to thy wife,
Made known to her the secret guilty strife,
Told of the awful chance, the business dice,
The gambling sales, the shameful, well-named vice,
Asked what to risk, asked what a man should do,
Would that shame-darkened cell have been for you?

She would have said, in woman's faith so strong,
"We may be poor, – we never will do wrong.
Take all this splendor; let it fade away,
But stand thou honest as the open day."
Would she have been to thee a feeble stay?

We make the woman weak where she is weak;
We school her feeble; feebleness we seek.
We make believe that life is pompous pride,
That she is blest, by gold when gratified,
This my conclusion, as the world we scan,
What's wrong in woman tells of wrong in man.

But where is Jones? While I have thus digressed,
Why Jones, poor fellow, is by care oppressed.
He draws his trail of briars round life's ring,
And wonders he is caught by everything.
Jones snaps at every woman, man, and child,
Just as a turtle by hot coals made wild.

Jones had a daughter, and her name was Kate,
As like her sire as pewter plate to plate.
And they together almost vexed to death,
The wife, the target of their arrowed breath.

Sometimes the patient creature's anger rose
Their petty wrongs, and malice to oppose.
And tempers such as hers, men do not try
By single deeds that cause some misery;
Stirred at the last by injuries borne so long,
Their anger speaks accumulated wrong.

Kate had her beauty, and her household skill,
And in due time her Jack had found his Gill,
He was a man as meek as man could be,
And could not dream of woman's tyranny.
He was a pleasant man to smile "good day,"