Much may be done with the world we are in
   Much with the race, to better it;
   We can unfetter it,
       Free it from chains of the old traditions,
Broaden its view-point of virtue and sin,
       Change its conditions
Of labor and wealth,
And open new roadways to knowledge and health
   Yet some things ever must stay as they are,
   While the sea has its tide and the sky has its sta
A man and a woman with love between,
Loyal and tender and true and clean--
   Nothing better has been, or can be,
   Than just those three.

Woman may alter the first great plan.
   Daughters and sisters and mothers
   May stalk with their brothers--
       Forth from their homes into noisy place
Fit, and fit only, for masculine man--
       Marring their graces
With conflict and strife,
To widen the outlook of all human life.
   Yet some things ever must stay as they are,
   While the sea has its tide and the sky has its star.
A man and a woman with love that strengthens
And gathers new force as its earth way-lengthens
   Nothing better by God is given
   This side of heaven.

Science may show us a wonderful, vast
   Secret of life and of breeding it;
   Man, by the heeding it.
       Out of earth's chaos may bring a new order.
Off with old systems; old laws may be cast.
       What now seems the border
Of license in creeds
May then be the center of thoughts and of deeds.
   Yet some things ever must stay as they are,
   While the sea has its tide and the sky has its star.
A man and a woman and love undefiled,
And the look of the two in the face of a child--
   Oh, the joys of this world have their changing ways,
   But this joy stays.
Nothing better on earth can be
Than just those three.

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox