She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems by Caroline Kennedy Read Free Book Online

default of grosser ties;
    Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies!—
    He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
    Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.
    Unprovoked and awful charges—even so the she-bear fights,
    Speech that drips, corrodes and poisons—even so the cobra bites,
    Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
    And the victim writhes in anguish—like the Jesuit with the squaw!
    So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
    With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
    Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
    To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.
    And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
    Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him.
    And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
    That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

From Paradise Lost
    JOHN MILTON
    Eve to herself after eating the apple:
    I grow mature
    In knowledge, as the gods who all things know;
    Though others envy what they cannot give;
    . . .
    But to Adam in what sort
    Shall I appear? shall I to him make known
    As yet my change, and give him to partake
    Full happiness with me, or rather not,
    But keep the odds of knowledge in my power
    Without copartner? so to add what wants
    In female sex, the more to draw his love,
    And render me more equal, and perhaps,
    A thing not undesirable, sometime
    Superior; for inferior who is free?
    This may be well: but what if God have seen,
    And death ensue? then I shall be no more,
    And Adam wedded to another Eve,
    Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct;
    A death to think. Confirmed then I resolve,
    Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe:
    So dear I love him, that with him all deaths
    I could endure, without him live no life.
    . . .
    Â 
    Adam to himself after learning that Eve has eaten the apple:
    O fairest of Creation, last and best
    Of all God’s works, creature in whom excelled
    Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,
    Holy, divine, good, amiable or sweet!
    How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,
    Defaced, deflow’red, and now to death devote?
    Rather how hast thou yielded to transgress
    The strict forbiddance, how to violate
    The sacred fruit forbidd’n! Some cursèd fraud
    Of Enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,
    And me with thee hath ruined, for with thee
    Certain my resolution is to die;
    How can I live without thee, how forgo
    Thy sweet convérse and love so dearly joined,
    To live again in these wild woods forlorn?
    Should God create another Eve, and I
    Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
    Would never from my heart; no no, I feel
    The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
    Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
    Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
    . . .
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    And later on:
    Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind,
    They sat them down to weep, nor only tears
    Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse within
    Began to rise, high passions, anger, hate,
    Mistrust, suspicion, discord, and shook sore
    Their inward state of mind, calm region once
    And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent:
    For understanding ruled not, and the will
    Heard not her lore, both in subjection now
    To sensual appetite, who from beneath
    Usurping over sov’reign reason claimed
    Superior sway: from thus distempered breast,
    Adam, estranged in look and altered style,
    Speech intermitted thus to Eve renewed.
    Would thou hadst hearkened to my words, and stayed
    With me, as I besought thee, when that strange
    Desire of wand’ring this unhappy morn,
    I know not whence possessed thee; we had then
    Remained still happy, not as now, despoiled
    Of all our good, shamed, naked, miserable.
    Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve
    The faith they owe; when earnestly they seek
    Such proof, conclude, they then begin