Percy

Are we so different?
He and I—
we have the same passion,
the same inspiration;
his talent is no greater,
and his taste is surely less fine—
his journals are crisscrossed with scratched-out words like mine
Yet I have no import, no influence.
Is it only the years of our births that work against me?
Born in his day,
would I, too, have written a symphony as a child?
Would I, too, have conquered India?
Perhaps it is impossible for me,
perhaps greatness is constrained by situation
Perhaps I should aim for targets that still stand.
Or perhaps I will never become a man of any value

(perhaps because I am a woman)