Sing Io Bacche! Io Susan sing!
Shout hallelujah! let the welkin ring!
Let all the male creation bound and free
Hosannas raise in woman’s jubilee!
The mighty tide is rolling, waves are dashing,
Oppressors tremble, kingly thrones are smashing;
Triumphant woman’s chariot wheels are flashing,
And bigot’s bones like brittle glass are crashing
Beneath the blows of woman’s sabre slashing.
Great is Diana! marvellous her plan!
For her I feel as never yet for man.
I could for her my energies exhaust
And deem my ends attained at trifling cost.
The breeches fit us all ’tis plain to see:
God bless the girls, they’re just the boys for me!
* * * * * * * * * *
Should you decide in view of my devotion,
To use your quasi votes for my promotion,
Depend, such action promised and concluded
Would prove the wisest thing that ever you did:
For, “entre nous,” ’tis thought, my charming sisters,
Although you’re known of old as great persisters,
And, doubtless, versatile enough and tricky,
For easy roads—yet when the mud is sticky,
The wheeling rough, or up a heavy grade—
Perchance a weighty burden on you laid,
To carry which your backs were never made,
Coarse muscle in the wheelers might avail
To move a load when lighter beasts must fail.
I say not this with view of underrating
Your priceless value, nor that price abating.
I merely would suggest a fair division
Of labor as perhaps a wise provision.
’Tis seen that dogs and other beastly samples
Teach us to hunt in pairs, by their examples.
Though women shirk the part of baby-feeders,
They still might work in double-teams—as leaders.
I recognize your fitness for the station,
Bow to the law of nature’s ordination
And raise my voice to swell the great ovation,
That waits this movement’s culmination.
Yet, humbly here would proffer a petition;
That, when her hopes are ripened to fruition,
And woman sits above us high and holy,
She’ll not forget to use us, (base and lowly
As we confess ourselves,) when powers brutal,
Like courage, strength, and zeal, may suit all
The circumstances of the new connection
’Twixt vulgar man and feminine perfection,
Permit us still, as an especial favor
From ruder toils and war’s alarms to save her:
The priv’lege grant, to fight, and toil, and swelter,
To furnish her support, and peace, and shelter;
To shield her angel face and fragile members,
From summers burning and from chill Decembers.
Yet, should such functions smack of arrogation
We’ll service render in some humbler station.
Perchance as barbers act, with greatest pleasure;
Or, kneeling low, as tailors, take her measure.
When woman is enthroned and man deposed—
The masculine dynasty fairly closed—
All this would follow as a thing of course—
As one ascends, the other sinks, perforce.
So much is plain to my poor comprehension;
But pardon me when now I briefly mention,
Some quandaries which, spite of all my grinding
Puzzle my brain past any hope of finding.
If now, as Susan argues, (save the mark!)
Fair woman should with man no more embark
In trade or any other enterprize,
Calling, pursuit, or act beneath the skies,
Beseech you, lovely social reconstructors
Who then shall play the role of reproductors?
A man might dishes wash, might swing the ladle,
The dinner cook, and even rock the cradle—
But how to fill the crib without a wife, or
A concubine, is more than I can cypher.
Just here I find, like Butler to a pin,
Myself a bottle, closely stoppered in.
And when the great millenium has met her,
When woman has no toil or care to fret her,
Does she design to live and reign forever?
Hath fate no pow’r the thread of life to sever?
Reckless, as to the conquered world’s possessors,
Has she no thought or care for her successors?
And if maternal functions be discarded
How shall the future of the race be guarded?
I only ask for private information—
No doubt there is a simple explanation,
Which I would fain possess that I might offer
The same to any godless gentile scoffer,
Who, sometimes might prefer unjust complaints,
Or doubt the wisdom of the rule of saints.
I fain would clothe myself in plated mail,
That, being safe, I need not shrink or quail
When far aloft I hear your blazoned banner,
And battle—after politician’s manner.
If you will aid me by your ballots on
My rough and rugged road to Washington,
Your modes of cure, and projects of prevention,
Shall, ladies, have—my earliest attention.”
Thus he bewildered them in crafty ways;
And being flush of non-commital phrase
Baptized their senses, sprinkling cloudy haze;
Shouting reform by way of peroration
Till all were drunken wild with exultation.
That such delusive mixture pleased them well
Attest unearthly shriek, hysteric yell,
That deluge-like upon him ceasing fell.
’Twas like the chatterings and caws that rose
From o’er excited rookery of crows
When raven sermon rounded to its close.
The spirit power conquered not a few,
Who, falling, shouted, “Hoop-te-doo-dle-doo.”
BOOK III.
SANCTUM SANCTORUM.
SUPPLEMENTARY CREATION. THE PALIMPSEST.
IN patching up this coat from tatters rotten,
Be sure the sable cloth was not forgotten.
And fit, indeed, that moral bridge-contractors
Have place, as well as moral malefactors;
So when these last are forced to fly to cover,
The first “by mediation” bear them over.
Accordingly when cry for more was sounded
The heav’nly manna fell, supply unbounded,
Then rev’rend Pee-Wee, rose, a humble man,
A spindling soldier of the Lord and ’gan,
In gentle murmurs half apologetic:
As if he feared the rude and energetic
Was unbecoming to his sacred station,
Or, dreaded lest a rousing, sound oration,
Might shake the country to its deep foundation
And bring destruction on this glorious nation.
However, being one of slow progression
Still in the A, B, C, of his profession,
Perhaps, ’twas only modest, wise, and prudent,
To step with caution, like a freshman student.
A stripling faded, pale, and neutral-eyed,
Like one in milk-and-water color dyed,
Rocking and swaying on his “feeble knees,”
Like flexile willow bending in the breeze,
He toyed as daintly with mighty themes
As if he handled doubtful eggs in dreams.
So have I seen a pale potato vine
In darksome cellar, tender grow and pine
For want of sunlight, dew, and bracing air;
And naught could e’er the early loss repair,
He, urged by zeal some action to perform
Which might, by marv’lous chance, promote reform;
The pious fame whereof should never cease—
Got softly up to speak his little piece:
With cringing step, profusely bowing too,
Crept carefully, and made this rich “debut.”
“I come, a sinner bowed with sad contrition,
Dear ladies, on my heav’nly master’s mission.
I wish “while yet the lamp holds out to burn”
To do this sinful world a friendly turn.
If you’re not wholly dead to sense and reason,
Perhaps you’ll hear the message spoke in season,
You’ll find recorded in the sacred word
In Genesis, from chapter one to third.
On sacred page much wisdom is discerned
And more inferred, as you’ve already learned.
Read here some secrets of the everlasting;
The rest we draw from heav’n “by prayer and fasting.”
The views with which my soul has so been favored
I’ll now unfold with sundry comments flavored.