Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/Toujours les Femmes

Toujours Les Femmes.

I think it was a Persian king
Who used to say, that evermore
In human life each evil thing
Comes of the sex that men adore;
That nought, in brief, had e'er befell
To harm or grieve our hapless race,
But, if you probe the matter well,
You'll find a woman in the case!

And then the curious tale is told
How, when upon a certain night
A climbing youngster lost his hold,
And, falling from a ladder's height,
Was found, alas! next morning dead,
His majesty, with solemn face,
As was his wont, demurely said,
"Pray, who's the woman in the case?"

And how a lady in his Court,
Who deemed the royal whim absurd,
Rebuked him while she made report
Of the mischance that late occurred;
Whereat the king replied in glee,
"I've heard the story, please your grace,
And all the witnesses agree
There was a woman in the case!

"The truth, your ladyship, is this,
(Nor is it marvellous at all,)
The youth was climbing for a kiss,
And got, instead, a fatal fall.
Whene'er a man—as I have said—
Falls from a ladder, or from grace,
Or breaks his faith, or breaks his head,
There is a woman in the case!"

For such, a churlish, carping creed
As that his majesty professed,
I hold him of unkingly breed—
Unless, in sooth, he spoke in jest;
To me, few things have come to pass
Of good event, but, I can trace—
Thanks to the matron or the lass—
Somewhere, a woman in the case.

Yet once, while gaily strolling where
A vast Museum still displays
Its varied wealth of strange and rare,
To charm, or to repel the gaze—
I—to a lady (who denied
The creed by laughing in my face)—
Took up, for once, the Persian's side
About a woman in the case.

Discoursing thus, we came upon
A grim Egyptian mummy—dead
Some centuries since. "'Tis Pharaoh's son—
Perhaps—who knows?"—the lady said.
No!—on the black sarcophagus
A female name I stooped to trace;
"Toujours les femmes! 'Tis ever thus—
There is a woman in the case!"