The Woman?s Voice

I struggled with poetry 'til I fell to sleep:
I thought me awake though my trance was so deep
That I heard Keats' Nightingale sweeten the night,
And spied Marvel's Mower in the glowworm light.
Donne with two women wrangled away.
I blushed to note Herrick as he seized the day.
All men, lusty men, righteous with power,
Cherished for lyrical memoirs in bowers
Of women so moral till chastity betrayed
When, by pleas and cajoling, these men with them laid.
So I dreamed and wondered who would sing
With the woman's voice, their truth to bring.
Their truth to share of innocence lost,
Their future darkened. 'Twas too great a cost
For a young poet's pleasure and grist for his grind
That we praise with little thought for his deed so unkind.