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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=339726" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Wife's Protest</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">1.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Like a white snowdrop in the spring<br>From child to girl I grew,<br>And thought no thought, and heard no word<br>That was not pure and true.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">2.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when I came to seventeen,<br>And life was fair and free,<br>A suitor, by my father's leave,<br>Was brought one day to me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">3.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">“Make me the happiest man on earth,”<br>He whispered soft and low.<br>My mother told me it was right<br>I was too young to know.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">4.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then they twined my bridal wreath<br>And placed it on my brow.<br>It seems like fifty years ago —<br>And I am twenty now.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">5.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My star, that barely rose, is set;<br>My day of hope is done —<br>My woman's life of love and joy —<br>Ere it has scarce begun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">6.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hourly I die — I do not live —<br>Though still so young and strong.<br>No dumb brute from his brother brutes<br>Endures such wanton wrong.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">7.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A smouldering shame consumes me now —<br>It poisons all my peace;<br>An inward torment of reproach<br>That never more will cease.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">8.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O how my spirit shrinks and sinks<br>Ere yet the light is gone!<br>What creeping terrors chill my blood<br>As each black night draws on!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">9.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I lay me down upon my bed,<br>A prisoner on the rack,<br>And suffer dumbly, as I must,<br>Till the kind day comes back.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">10.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Listening from heavy hour to hour<br>To hear the church- clock toll —<br>A guiltless prostitute in flesh,<br>A murderess in soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">11.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Those church- bells chimed the marriage chimes<br>When he was wed to me,<br>And they must knell a funeral knell<br>Ere I again am free.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">12.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I did not hate him then; in faith<br>I vowed the vow “I will;”<br>Were I his mate, and not his slave,<br>I could perform it still.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">13.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, crushed in these relentless bonds<br>I blindly helped to tie,<br>With one way only for escape,<br>I pray that he may die.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">14.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O to possess myself once more,<br>Myself so stained and maimed!<br>O to make pure these shuddering limbs<br>That loveless lust has shamed!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">15.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But beauty cannot be restored<br>Where such a blight has been,<br>And all the rivers in the world<br>Can never wash me clean.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">16.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I go to church; I go to court;<br>No breath of scandal flaws<br>The lustre of my fair repute;<br>For I obey the laws.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">17.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My ragged sister of the street,<br>Marked for the world's disgrace,<br>Scarce dares to lift her sinful eyes<br>To the great lady's face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">18.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She hides in shadows as I pass —<br>On me the sunbeams shine;<br>Yet, in the sight of God, her stain<br>May be less black than mine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">19.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Maybe she gave her all for love,<br>And did not count the cost;<br>If so, her crown of womanhood<br>Was not ignobly lost.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">20.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Maybe she wears those wretched rags,<br>And starves from door to door,<br>To keep her body for her own<br>Since it may love no more.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">21.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If so, in spite of church and law,<br>She is more pure than I;<br>The latchet of those broken shoes<br>I am not fit to tie.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">22.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That hungry baby at her breast —<br>Sign of her fallen state —<br>Nature, who would but mock at mine,<br>Has made legitimate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">23.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Poor little “love- child” — spurned and scorned,<br>Whom church and law disown,<br>Thou hadst thy birthright when the seed<br>Of thy small life was sown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">24.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Nature, give no child to me,<br>Whom Love must ne'er embrace!<br>Thou knowest I could not bear to look<br>On its reproachful face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Ada+Cambridge">Ada Cambridge</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=339726" data-title="A Wife's Protest de Ada Cambridge" data-description="1.

Like a white snowdrop in the spring
From child to girl I grew,
And thought no thought, and heard no word
That was not pure and true.

2.

And when I came to seventeen,
And life was fair and free,
A suitor, by my father's leave,
Was brought one..."></div>
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