Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.
The firefly wakens; waken thou with me.
s Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danae1 to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
io A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake.
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.
1847
['The woman's cause is man's']'
'Blame not thyself too much,' I said, 'nor blame
240 Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws;
These were the rough ways of the world till now.
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know
The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free:
245 For she that out of Lethe2 scales with man
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man
1. A Greek princess, whose father confined her in Gama, the prince's father, invades the university a brazen chamber after hearing the oracle that her to rescue his son and force Ida to marry him?the son would kill him. But Zeus came to her in the university is turned into a hospital and the princess form of a shower of gold, and she bore the hero is persuaded of the error of her ways. The prince's Perseus. final vision, from book 7 (reprinted here), in which 1. The Princess was Tennyson's attempt to address he imagines a future of gradual change, by which the contemporary debate over woman's proper men and women adopt the strengths of the other role. It tells the story of a prince who courts the while maintaining their distinct natures, has been young and beautiful Princess Ida. She has vowed a key text in discussing Victorian constructions of she will never marry and has established a women's masculinity and femininity. In the operetta Prinuniversity from which men are excluded. The cess Ida (1884), w. S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan prince and his two companions dress themselves parody Tennyson's poem and satirize feminism. up in women's clothes to gain entrance to the uni-2. In the classical underworld, the river of forgetversity. When a battle ensues?in which King fulness.
.
['THE WOMAN'S CAUSE is MAN'S'] / 1137
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal,
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands?
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
250 How shall men grow? but work no more alone!
Our place is much: as far as in us lies
We two will serve them both in aiding her?
Will clear away the parasitic forms
That seem to keep her up but drag her down?
255 Will leave her space to burgeon out of all
Within her?let her make herself her own
To give or keep, to live and learn and be
All that not harms distinctive womanhood.
For woman is not undevelopt man,
260 But diverse: could we make her as the man, Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference.
Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
