Man and Woman

 

Man is the most elevated of creatures,

Woman the most sublime of ideals.

God made for man a throne; for woman an altar.

The throne exalts, the altar sanctifies.

Man is the brain,

Woman is the heart.

The brain created light, the heart, love.

Light engenders, love resurrects.

Because of reason, Man is strong,

Because of tears, Woman is invisible.

Reason is convincing, tears, moving.

Man is capable of all heroism,

Woman of all martyrdom.

Heroism ennobles, martyrdom sublimates.

Man has supremacy,

Woman, preference.

Supremacy is strength, preference is the right.

Man is genius,

Woman an angel.

Genius is immeasurable, the angel indefinable.

The aspiration of man is supreme glory.

The aspiration of woman is extreme virtue.

Glory creates all that is great; virtue, all that is divine.

Man is a code,

Woman a gospel

A code corrects; the gospel perfects.

Man thinks,

Woman dreams.

To think is to have a worm in the brain, to dream is to
have a halo on the brow.

Man is an ocean,

Woman a lake.

The ocean has the adorning pearl, the lake, dazzling
poetry.

Man is the flying eagle,

Woman, the singing nightingale.

To fly is to conquer space.

To sing is to conquer the soul.

Man is a temple,

Woman is shrine.

Before the temple we discover ourselves, before the shrine
we kneel.

In short, man is found where earth finishes,

Woman where heaven begins.

~Victor Hugo