“Too true for you, perchance”, admitted her Love. “But nevertheless, did not some and several return to their Posts?” “Indeed, and a few”, said High-Head, “but how!”
SEPTEMBER hath 30 days
HER TIDES AND MOONS
THE very Condition of Woman is so subject to Hazard, so complex, and so grievous, that to place her at one Moment is but to displace her at the next.
In Youth she is comely, straight of Limb, fair of Eye, sweet back and front; tall or short, light or dark — somehow or somewhat to the Heart. Yet it is not twelve span before she sags, stretches, becomes distorted. Her Bones dry, her flesh melts, her Tongue is bitter, or runs an outlawed Honey. Her Mind is corrupt with the Cash of a pick-thank existence. Life has taught her Life. She hath become Friends with it, nor hath she lain long enough upon her Back-though she hath lain so half her duration, to prefer the Coin of Ether. She was not fashioned to swim in Heaven, she is a Fish of Earth, she swims in Terra-firma.
Yet in this poor Condition she causes Pain to Condition as poor. For all are bagged of the same Net, and one comes to as ignoble Ashes as another. The pelvic Bone of Saint Theresa gapes no more Honesty than that of Messalina, for the missing Door wherein no Man passed, is as Not as that windy Space where all were wont to charge, and the Eye that wept for it is as unhoused as the flesh it cried for.
No Feet come and go in the Grave, nor is any Hand wanton in the Tomb, and this is a long while, wherefore then do you grieve? She is dishonest to-day, but tomorrow she is unsought for forever.
Yet we trouble the Heart for that which was made hastily and without peradventure of how it should be in the Womb, and without Wish to know how it shall fare ten weeks in the Earth.
These be three Conditions, yet we take account of the one and second only, that she is. What then is this but a short swinging of the Mind, a false Addition, for that two Figures of its entirety are left to no accounting?
If then in Man Jealousy for his Wife is an unthinking and amiss Calculation, how much more pointless is it for a Woman to faint, grow sick, turn to Fury and Sorrow over a Woman? A man may rage for the little Difference which shall be alien always, but a Woman tears her Shift for a Likeness in a Shift, and a Mystery that is lost to the proportion of Mystery.
Yet do this Fire rage as hotly here in the Garden of Venus, yea, with an even more licorous and tempestuous flame, than in the very Camp of Nature; and where one Man is cut down from a Rope’s End for the sake of his dishonest Wife, two Maids will that same day be found swinging to that Same Beam for that same Girl.
They do not plead, as is the Custom among Families, that they are by Treachery made Cuckold, wear Horns and nourish a bastard Child, for such a contention were more than impossible. And though that has been, for the ancient, the chiefest Thorn in the side, see how vain is Man’s suffering, change it how you will, for though that Prick is nowhere in the Flesh of Sister for Sister, they cry as loud, yea, lament still more copiously, turning and twisting as if the very Lack were an extraordinary Pain!
What then is this but a Vanity, and a pouring out of Despair over ourselves; and doth it not prove, all that Man has said to the contrary (bringing the legitimacy of his Offspring to the Bench as reason) that it is a Lie alone, and that the Seat of the Matter is in his own Pride?
Take away a Man’s excuse and he weeps the same, though this time it will be a desolate and unarguing Melancholy. Yet withal ’tis more honest, and the more honest a thing be, the nearer it strikes against the Rib. So it is with Woman. They have no Platform for their Jealousies but the true bitterness of that Folly, and where they weep, it is for Loneliness estranged — the unthinking returning of themselves to themselves, if they but reason — which is improbable: for where there is a Grain of Reason, there is a Grain of recovery, and where there is a Grain of Recovery there is a Blade of Indifference, and where this shoots up, there may be a Garden of Oblivion in which to ease the Breath.
Nevertheless we have become so used to calling Vanity by its other Name, that even a woman wailing for a Woman has not taught us of it. And those who lie down in this Lament turn to the Wall as completely as Penelope lamenting her Husband.
It is a Maze, nor will we have a way out of it, though we know of long that way. Much turning of the Spindle thins out the Thread of Despair, and much leaping of the Shuttle threads Trouble to a Purpose, yet we will none of it, and step the Treadle without Aim, and cast the Shuttle without Food, and weave the air into a Mantle of Sickness.
We shake the Tree, till there be no Leaves, and cry out at the Sticks; we trouble the Earth awhile with our Fury; our Sorrow is flesh thick, and we shall not cease to eat of it until the easing Bone. Our Peace is not skin deep, but to the Marrow, we are not wise this side of rigor mortis; we go down to no River of Wisdom, but swim alone in Jordan. We have few Philosophers among us, for our Blood was stewed too thick to bear up Wisdom, which is a little Craft, and floats only when the way is prepared, and the Winds are calm.
LISTS AND LIKELIHOODS
THE Vixen in the Coat of red,
The Hussy with the Honey Head,
Her frontal Bone soft lappéd up
With hempen Ringlets like the Tup,
The Doxy in the Vest of Kid
Rustling like the Katie-did,
With Panther’s Eyen dark and wan,
And dovës Feet to walk upon.
The Jockey with the Pelvis plump,
The high-hipped Wrestler with the Rump
Of yearling Mare, firm, sleek and creased,
The Tamer smelling like her Beast,
The starry Jade with mannish Stride,
The Sister Twins in one Sash tied,
The humpback Jester at her ease,
Her Jollies coiled on their Trapeze.
The Virgin with the Patridge Call,
Stepping her rolling azure Ball,
The Queen, who in the Night turned down
The spikës of her Husband’s Crown
Therein to sit her Wench of Bliss
The whole long Year will be like this!
For all the Planets, Stars and Zones
Run girlish to their Marrow-bones!
And all the Tides prognosticate
Not much of any other State!
OCTOBER hath 31 days
THERE was a time when still rhymed to the wild Rib that had made her, Woman was atune to every Adder, every Lion, every Tiger, every Wood thing, every Water-wight, every Sky-wanderer; every Apple was to her a whole Superstition, and to quiet and to tame that Bone, she whispered “Lord! Lord!”
But yet a little while and she is most grisly impudent. As the Earth sucked down her Generations, Body for Body, became she less hollow for the Lord’s priming. Any prating Fellow with a Lute at bottom, a handful of Frills, a Knee turned out and a sweeping Feather, could, in one Verse, sing her full of Earth, and indeed for what our Minstrels have to account themselves guilty, will perhaps, with the Tibia of Caesar, lie unchartered in the Tomb of no Man’s memory a long lethal Æon. He was Lord-my-own and Cock-Sparrow of her trembling, he was both Adder in the Grass and Pippin on the Bough, he was the rush waving and the Bolt upon the Door, and the exceeding crammed Larder wherein she sat filching, a nibbling Mouse of Pang and Pang again.