For but a slave himself must ever be, Till she to shape her own career be free;— Free from all uninvited touch of man, Free mistress of her person’s sacred plan; Free human soul; the brood that she shall bear, The first—the truly free, to breathe our air; From woman slave can come but menial race, The mother free confers her freedom and her grace. XLI. By her the progress of our future kind, Their stalwart body and their spacious mind; For, folded in her form each human mite Has its first home, its sustenance and light; Hers the live warmth that fans its spirit flame, Her generous sap supplies its fleshly frame, And e’en the juice,—the fullborn infant’s food, Is yet a blanched form of woman’s living blood. XLII. Strange wisdom by her unkenned craft is taught While yet the embryo in her womb is wrought; For, long ere entering on our tumult rife, It learns from her the needful art of life; Unconscious teacher, she, yet all she knows Of dark experience to her infant flows, And brands him, ere he rest upon her knee, Offshoot of slavish race, not scion of the free. XLIII. To either sex the bondage and the pain, They seek to live a freeman’s life in vain; For man or woman can but act the part, When ’tis not freeborn blood that fills the heart: Strive as he may, the modern man, at best, Is tyrant, differing somewhat from the rest; Nor woman thraldom-bred can surely know Where lies her richest gift, or how its wealth to show. XLIV. Thus learn we that in woman rendered free Is raised the rank of all humanity; The despot is the fullfruit of the slave;— To form the freeman, equable and brave, Habit of freedom must spontaneous come As life itself, and from the selfsame womb; Life, liberty, and love,—lien undefiled,— The freeborn mother’s heirloom to her freeborn child. XLV. So shall her noble issue, maid or boy, With equal freedom equal fate enjoy; Together reared in purity and truth, Through plastic childhood and retentive youth; Their mutual sports of sinew and of brain In strength alike the sturdy comrades train; Of differing sex no thought inept intrudes, Their purpose calmly sure all errant aim excludes. XLVI. For soul, not sex, shall to each life assign What destiny to fill, or what decline; Through years mature impartial range shall reach, And wider wisdom, juster ethics, teach; Conformed to claims of intellect and need, The tempered numbers of their high-born breed; Not overworn with childward pain and care, The mother—and the race—robuster health shall share. XLVII.