It’s a weary life, it is, she said:

Doubly blank in a woman’s lot:

I wish and I wish I were a man:

Or, better then any being, were not:

Were nothing at all in all the world,

Not a body and not a soul:

Not so much as a grain of dust

Or a drop of water from pole to pole.

Still the world would wag on the same,

Still the seasons go and come:

Blossoms bloom as in days of old,

Cherries ripen and wild bees hum.

None would miss me in all the world,

How much less would care or weep:

I should be nothing, while all the rest

Would wake and weary and fall asleep.