It would seem that man's God should restrain him, Or else should avenge our dishonor: Shall the cries of the hopeless not pain him, Or shall woman take all guilt upon her? Let us challenge the maker that made us; Let us cry to Christ, son of a woman; We shall learn if, when man has betrayed us, Heaven's justice accords with the human. We must know if because we were lowly, And kept in the place man assigned us, He could seek us with passions unholy And be free, while his penalties bind us. We would ask if his gold buys exemption, Or whether his manhood acquits him; How it is that we scarce find redemption For sins less than his self-law permits him. Do we dare the Almighty to question? Shall the clay to the potter appeal? To whom else shall we go with suggestion? Shall the vase not complain to the wheel? God answered Job out of the groaning Of thunder and whirlwind and hailing; Will he turn a deaf ear to our moaning, Or reply to our prayers with railing? Did you speak of a Christ who is tender-- A deity born of a woman? Of the sorrowful, God and defender, And brother and friend of the human? Long ago He ascended to heaven, Long ago was His teaching forgotten; The lump has no longer the leaven, But is heavy, unwholesome and rotten. The gods are all man's, whom he praises For laws that make woman his creature; For the rest, theological mazes Furnish work for the salaried preacher. In the youth of the world it was better, We had deities then of our choosing; We could pray, though we wore then a fetter, To a GODDESS of binding and loosing. We could kneel in a grove or a temple, No man's heavy hand on our shoulder: Had in Pallas Athene example To make womanhood stronger and bolder. But the temples are broken and plundered, Sacred altars profanely o'erthrown; Where the oracle trembled and thundered, Are a cavern, a fount, and a stone. Yet we would of the Christ hear the story, 'Twas familiar in days that are ended; His humility, purity, glory, Are they not into heaven ascended? We see naught but scorning and hating; We hear naught but threats and contemning: For your Christian is good and berating, And your sinner is first in condemning. Should you say that the Christ would reprove us, If we found him and told him our trouble? It is fearful with no one to love us, And our pain and despair growing double. It is mad'ning to feel we're excluded From the homes of the mothers that bore us; And that man, by no false arts deluded, May enter unchallenged before us.