Yet sometimes it occurs to me
That Henry missed his true vocation;
A husband by profession he,
A widower by occupation;
And, honestly, it seems a pity
He didn't live in Salt Lake City.
For there he could have put in force
His plural marriage views, unbaffled;
Nor had recourse to dull divorce,
Nor sought the service of the scaffold;
Nor looked for peace, nor found release,
In any partner's predecease.
Had Henry been alive to-day,
He might have hired a timely motor,
And sent each wife in turn to stay
Within the confines of Dakota;
That State whose rigid marriage-law,
Is eulogised by Bernard Shaw.
But Henry's simple days are done,
And, in the present generation,
A wife is seldom woo'd and won
By prospects of decapitation.
For nowadays when Woman weds,
It is the Men who lose their heads!
Alton B. Parker
HOSE Roman Fathers, long ago,
Established a sublime tradition,
Who gave the Man Behind the Hoe
His proud proconsular position;
When Cincinnatus left his hens,
And beat his ploughshares into pens.
