Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

James Kenneth Stephen 1859–92

A Thought

IF all the harm that women have done

Were put in a bundle and rolled into one,

Earth would not hold it,

The sky could not enfold it,

It could not be lighted nor warmed by the sun;

Such masses of evil

Would puzzle the devil

And keep him in fuel while Time’s wheels run.

But if all the harm that ’s been done by men

Were doubled and doubled and doubled again,

And melted and fused into vapor and then

Were squared and raised to the power of ten,

There would n’t be nearly enough, not near,

To keep a small girl for the tenth of a year.