“We haven’t much time to be merry who marry a struggling man,
Making and mending and saving and spending, and doing the best we
                can. 
Skimming and scamming and plotting and planning, and making the done
                for do,
Grinding the mill with the old grist still and turning the old into
                new;
Picking and paring and shaving and sharing, and when not enough for
                us all,
Giving up tea that whatever may be the ’bacca sha’n’t go to the wall;
With never a rest from the riot and zest, the hustle and bustle and
                noise
Of the boys who all try to be men like you, and the girls who all try
                to be boys.

“You know the tale of the eagle that carried the child away To its eyrie high in the mountain sky, grim and rugged and gray; Of the sailor who climbed to save it, who, ere he had half-way sped Up the mountain wild, met mother and child returning as from the
                dead
There’s many a bearded giant had never have grown a span, If in peril’s power in childhood’s hour he’d had to wait for a man.  And who is the one among you but is living and hale to-day, Because he was tied to a woman’s side in the old home far away?

“You have heard the tale of the lifeboat, and the women of Mumbles
                Head,
Who, when the men stood shivering by, or out from the danger fled,
Tore their shawls into striplets and knotted them end to end,
And then went down to the gates of death for father and brother and
                friend. 
Deeper and deeper into the sea, ready of heart and head,
Hauling them home through the blinding foam, and raising them from
                the dead. 
There’s many of you to-morrow who, but for a woman’s hand,
Would be drifting about with the shore lights out and never a chance
                to land.

“You’ve read of the noble woman in the midst of a Border fray
Who held her own in a castle lone, for her lord who was far away. 
For the children who gather’d round her and the home that she loved
                so well,
And the deathless fame of a woman’s name whom nothing but love could
                quell. 
Who, when the men would have yielded, with her own sweet lily hand,
Led them straight from the postern gate, and drove the foe from the
                land. 
There’s many a little homestead that is cosy and sung to-day,
Because of a woman who stood in the door and kept the wolves at bay.

“Only a hindrance are we? then we’ll be a hindrance still. 
We hinder the devil and all his works, and I reckon he takes it ill. 
We do the work that is nearest, and that is the surest plan,
But if ever you want a hero, and you cannot wait for a man,
You need not tell us the chances, you’ve only the need to show,
And there’s many a woman in all the world who