"You, too! What early blight
Has withered your fond hopes, that ye thus stand,
A group of sisters, 'mong this monkish band? Ye creatures bright!
Has sorrow scored your brows with demon hand,
Or o'er your hopes passed treachery's burning brand?
"Ye would have graced right well
The bridal scene, the banquet, or the bowers
Where mirth and revelry usurp the hours—Where, like a spell,
Beauty is sovereign—where man owns its powers,
And woman's tread is o'er a path of flowers.
"Yet seem ye not as those
Within whose bosoms memories vigils keep:
Beneath your drooping lids no passions sleep; And your pale brows
Bear not the tracery of emotion deep—
Ye seem too cold and passionless to weep!"
A "Shaker Girl," in one of the Kentucky societies, published soon afterward the following "Answer to Charlotte Cushman," which is certainly not without spirit:
"We are, indeed, the things we seem to be,
Of earth, and from its iron influence free:
For we are they, or halt, or lame, or dumb,
'On whom the ends of this vain world are come.'
"We have outlived those day-dreams of the mind—
Those flattering phantoms which so many bind;
All man-made creeds (your 'faith's sustaining lever')
We have forsaken, and have left forever!
"To plainly tell the truth, we do not rue
The sober, godly course that we pursue;
But 'tis not we who live the dronish lives,
But those who have their husbands or their wives!
But if by drones you mean they're lazy men,
Then, Charlotte Cushman, take it back again;
For one, with half an eye, or half a mind,
Can there see industry and wealth combined.
"If camps and councils—soldiers' 'fields of fame'—
Or yet a people's praise or people's blame,
Is all that gives the sage or bard his name,
We can 'forego the strife, nor own our shame'
What great temptations you hold up to view
For men of sense or reason to pursue!
The praise of mortals!—what can it avail,
When all their boasted language has to fail?
And 'sorrow hath not scored with demon hand,'
Nor 'o'er our hopes pass'd treachery's burning brand;'
But where the sorrows and the treachery are,
I think may easily be made appear.
In 'bridal scenes,' in 'banquets and in bowers!'
'Mid revelry and variegated flowers,
Is where your mother Eve first felt their powers.
The 'bridal scenes,' you say, 'we'd grace right well!'
'Lang syne' there our first parents blindly fell!—
The bridal scene! Is this your end and aim?
And can you this pursue, 'nor own your shame?'
If so—weak, pithy, superficial thing—
Drink, silent drink the sick hymeneal spring.
'The bridal scene! the banquet or the bowers,
Or woman's [bed of thorns, or] path of flowers,'
Can't all persuade our souls to turn aside
To live in filthy lust or cruel pride.
Alas! your path of flowers will disappear;
E'en now a thousand thorns are pointed near;
Ah! here you find 'base treachery's burning brand,'
And sorrows score the heart, nor spare the hand;
But here 'Beauty's sovereign'—so say you—
A thing that in one hour may lose its hue—
It lies upon the surface of the skin—
Aye, Beauty's self was never worth a pin;
But still it suits the superficial mind—
The slight observer of the human kind;
The airy, fleety, vain, and hollow thing,
That only feeds on wily flattering.
'Man owns its powers?' And what will not man own
To gain his end—to captivate—dethrone?
The truth is this, whatever he may feign,
You'll find your greatest loss his greatest gain;
For like the bee, he will improve the hour,
And all day long he'll hunt from flower to flower,
And when he sips the sweetness all away,
For aught he cares, the flowers may all decay.
But here, each other's virtues we partake,
Where men and women all their ills forsake:
True virtue spreads her bright angelic wing,
While saints and seraphs praise the Almighty King.
And when the matter's rightly understood,
You'll find we labor for each other's good;
This, Charlotte Cushman, truly is our aim—
Can you forego this strife, 'nor own your shame?'
Now if you would receive a modest hint,
You'd surely keep your name at least from print,
Nor have it hoisted, handled round and round,
And echoed o'er the earth from mound to mound,
As the great advocate of ——— (Oh, the name!).
Now can you think of this, 'nor own your shame?'
But, Charlotte, learn to take a deeper view
Of what your neighbors say or neighbors do;
And when some flattering knaves around you tread,
Just think of what a SHAKER GIRL has said."
The Shaker and Shakeress, a monthly journal, edited by Elder Frederick Evans and Eldress Antoinette Doolittle, is the organ of the society; and in its pages their views are set forth with much shrewdness and ability. It is not so generally interesting a journal as the Oneida Circular, the organ of the Perfectionists, because the Shakers concern themselves almost exclusively with religious matters, and give in their paper but few details of their daily and practical life.