OH! tell me not that woman's weak, Inconstant, or unkind; Though flippant writers often speak As though dame Nature's master freak Was molding woman's mind. Around the sufferer's lowly bed, When palls the heart of men; When science falls and hope is fled, And helpless lies the dying head, Oh! who is constant then! Who watches, with a tireless eye, The faintly heaving breath? Who hovers round, for ever nigh, To catch the last expiring sigh, And soothe the pangs of death? When disappointment sink the soul, And round us troubles throng; When grief exerts its wild control, And sorrow's stormy billows roll, Then, then, oh! who is strong? Man sinks beneath misfortune's blow And hope forsakes his breast; His boasted powers are all laid low, His strength is swallowed up in woe, When not by woman blest. But she can cheer his drooping heart, And rouse his soul again; Can bid his cankering cares depart, And, by her smiling, artless art, Can soothe his keenest pain. Is woman weak? Go as the sword, The weapon of the brave,— Whose look, whose tone, whose lightest word, Though e'en but in a whisper heard, Commands it as her slave. Go ask man's wild and restless heart Who can its passions quell; Who can withdraw hate's venomed dart, Bid malice and revenge depart, And virtue in it dwell. If woman's weak, then what is strong? For all things bow to her: To her man's powers all belong; For her the bard attunes his song, Her truest worshiper. Woman, a fearful power is thine: The mission to the given Requires a strength almost divine, A bosom that is virtue's shrine, A soul allied to heaven.