MRS. PROWLINA PRY.
You hope you don't intrude? Prowlina Pry You do, you do! In ignorance it may be, The rôle of Rhadamanthus you would try, With scarce the fitness of a bumptious baby. With folly's headlong haste you would rush in Where well-tried wisdom treads with fear and trembling. Gregarious Silliness would cope with Sin; But when geese swarm what comes of such assembling?
Cackle, and cant, and chaos! Needless noise, Meddling and mischief and sheer moral muddle! Reformers must not act like gutter-boys Who rake up mud, stir each malodorous puddle. Life's purlieus are defiled; will it avail To grub and rake in reeking slum and by-way, Until the foul infection loads the gale, And pestilence stalks boldly in the highway?
Prowlina Pry, your purview is too small; Life is not plumbed by microscopic peeping, And Nature is too large for nursery-thrall. The globe is not in Mrs. Grundy's keeping. Clear sense, and not lop-sided sentiment, Must front Society's perplexing puzzles; Humanity, when roused, has ever rent Partington policies of mops and muzzles.
Humanity is a most complex thing, Not simple as a gag or feeding-bottle. You, lest it stray, would rob it of its wing. Lest it feed ill would simply close its throttle. The Puritanic plan in a new guise!— A female Praise-God-Barebones now would rule us. We Britons, who have baffled our male Prys, Are little like to let she-ones befool us.
Unclean! Unclean! 'Twas the old lepers' cry, You'd silence them and call it—purifying! Drive swine possessed of devils from their sty, And bid them spread infection as they're flying! Did some steep place lead down into the sea Of dead oblivion and sheer extirpation, 'Twere well to scourge them thither. What if, free, They carry foul contagion through—a nation?
Thousands of fellow-creatures flung from work At the mere pen-stroke of a hasty censor!— An unconsidered trifle Zeal may shirk! But Sense may not, nor Justice! They are denser Than Punch imagines, our new Bumble-band, If Mistress Pry's decision they abide by; But should they fail us, Punch throughout the land Will wake the People prudes and prigs are tried by!
Petticoat-government, Prowlina Pry, Of this peculiar sort will scarcely suit us. Such cases clear collective sense must try, Not a she-Draco or a lady-Brutus. To sweeten our poor world we all may strive, But life's not one long Puritanic Sunday; And the great World while manhood is alive, Shall not be wholly swayed by Mrs. Grundy.
Prowlina Pry Society's festering ills Will not be healed by your pragmatic plaster. Tare-rooting that the growing corn-crop kills Was not the plan or counsel of the Master. You with rash hand would wield the whip of cords He raised but once in righteous indignation. Heed the great lesson that the fact affords, And leave our woes to Wisdom's mild purgation.
MRS. PROWLINA PRY.—"I HOPE I DON'T INTRUDE!"
Thousands of fellow-creatures flung from work At the mere pen-stroke of a hasty Censor!— An unconsidered trifle Zeal may shirk! But Sense may not, nor Justice! They are denser
Than Punch imagines, our new Bumble-band, If Mistress Pry's decision they abide by; But should they fail us, Punch throughout the land Will wake the People prudes and prigs are tried by!