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Title: Here are Ladies

Author: James Stephens

Release Date: December 19, 2006 [EBook #20127]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERE ARE LADIES ***

Produced by Al Haines

HERE ARE LADIES

BY

JAMES STEPHENS

AUTHOR OF 'THE CROCK OF GOLD'

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1914

COPYRIGHT, 1913

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1913

Reprinted March, 1914.

CONTENTS

WOMEN
THREE HEAVY HUSBANDS
A GLASS OF BEER
ONE AND ONE
THREE WOMEN WHO WEPT
THE TRIANGLE
THE DAISIES
THREE ANGRY PEOPLE
THE THREEPENNY PIECE
BRIGID
THREE YOUNG WIVES
THE HORSES
MISTRESS QUIET EYES
THREE LOVERS WHO LOST
THE BLIND MAN
SWEET-APPLE
THREE HAPPY PLACES
THE MOON
THERE IS A TAVERN IN THE TOWN

HERE ARE LADIES

WOMEN

Listen! If but women were
Half as kind as they are fair
There would be an end to all
Miseries that do appal.

Cloud and wind would fly together
In a dance of sunny weather,
And the happy trees would throw
Gifts to travellers below.

Then the lion, meek and mild,
With the lamb would, side by side,
Couch him friendly, and would be
Innocent of enmity.

Then the Frozen Pole would go,
Shaking off his fields of snow,
To a kinder clime and dance
Warmly with the girls of France.

These; if women only were
Half as kind as they are fair.

THREE HEAVY HUSBANDS

I

He had a high nose. He looked at one over the collar, so to speak.
His regard was very assured, and his speech was that short bundle of
monosyllables which the subaltern throws at the orderly. He had never
been questioned, and, the precedent being absent, he had never
questioned himself. Why should he? We live by question and answer,
but we do not know the reply to anything until a puzzled comrade
bothers us and initiates that divine curiosity which both humbles and
uplifts us.

He wanted all things for himself. What he owned he wished to own
completely. He would give anything