Come my modern women,
Follow me this evening, get your numbers ready,
Have you got your latchkeys? have you your members' axes?
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
To the club in Bruton Street
We must march my darlings, one and all a great ensemble,
We the strenuous lady champions, all extremely up to date,
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
O you girls, West-End girls,
O you young revolting daughters, full of manly pride and manners,
Plain I see you West-End girls (no reflection on your features!).
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
Have our lords and masters halted?
Do they humbly take a back-seat, wearied out with Madame Sarah Grand?
We take up the dual garments, and the eyeglass and the cycle.
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
From North Hampstead, from South Tooting,
From far Peckham, from the suburbs and the shires we come,
All the dress of comrades noting, bonnets, fashions criticising,
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
We primeval fetters loosing,
We our husbands taming, vexing we and worrying Mrs. Grundy,
We our own lives freely living, we as bachelor-girls residing,
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
Literary dames are we,
Singers, speakers, temperance readers, artists we and journalists,
Here and there a festive actress (generally to be found in our smoking-room),
Pioneers! O Pioneers!