The Laureate, seeking Love's last law,

Finds "Nature red in tooth and claw

With ravin"; fierce and ruthless.

But Woman? Bard who so should sing

Of her, the sweet soft-bosomed thing,

Would he tabooed as truthless.

Yet what is this she-creature, plumed

And poised in air? Iris-illumed,

She gleams, in borrowed glory,

A portent of modernity,

Out-marvelling strangest phantasy

That chequered classic story.

Fair-locked and winged. So HESIOD drew

The legendary Harpy crew,

The "Spoilers" of old fable;

Maidens, yet monsters, woman-faced,

With iron hearts that had disgraced

The slaughterer of ABEL.

Chimæra dire! The Sirens three,

Ulysses shunned were such as she,

Though robed in simpler raiment.

Is there no modern Nemesis

To deal out to such ghouls as this

Just destiny's repayment?

O modish Moloch of the air!

The eagle swooping from his lair

On bird-world's lesser creatures,

Is spoiler less intent to slay

Than this unsparing Bird of Prey,

With Woman's form and features.

Woman? We know her slavish thrall

To the strange sway despotical

Of that strong figment, Fashion;

But is there nought in this to move

The being born for grace and love

To shamed rebellious passion?

'Tis a she-shape by Mode arrayed!

The dove that coos in verdant shade,

The lark that shrills in ether,

The humming-bird with jewelled wings,—

Ten thousand tiny songful things

Have lent her plume and feather.

They die in hordes that she may fly,

A glittering horror, through the sky.

Their voices, hushed in anguish,

Find no soft echoes in her ears,

Or the vile trade in pangs and fears

Her whims support would languish.

What cares she that those wings were torn

From shuddering things, of plumage shorn

To make her plumes imposing?

That when—for her—bird-mothers die,

Their broods in long-drawn agony

Their eyes—for her—are closing?

What cares she that the woods, bereft

Of feathered denizens, are left

To swarming insect scourges?

On Woman's heart, when once made hard

By Fashion, Pity's gentlest bard

Love's plea all vainly urges.

A Harpy, she, a Bird of Prey,

Who on her slaughtering skyey way,

Beak-striketh and claw-clutcheth.

But Ladies who own not her sway,

Will you not lift white hands to stay

The shameless slaughter which to-day

Your sex's honour toucheth?

Woman's world's a stage,

And modern women will be ill-cast players;

They'll have new exits and strange entrances,

And one She will play many mannish parts,

And these her Seven Ages. First the infant

"Grinding" and "sapping" in its mother's arms,

And then the pinched High-School girl, with packed satchel,

And worn anæmic face, creeping like cripple

Short-sightedly to school. Then the "free-lover,"

Mouthing out IBSEN, or some cynic ballad

Made against matrimony. Then a spouter,

Full of long words and windy; a wire-puller,

Jealous of office, fond of platform-posing,

Seeking that bubble She-enfranchisement

E'en with abusive mouth. Then County-Councillor,

Her meagre bosom shrunk and harshly lined,

Full of "land-laws" and "unearned increment";

Or playing M.P. part. The sixth age shifts

Into the withered sour She-pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and "Gamp" at side,

Her azure hose, well-darned, a world too wide

For her shrunk shanks; her once sweet woman's voice,

Verjuiced to Virgin-vinegarishness,

Grates harshly in its sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange new-fangled history,

Is sheer unwomanliness, mere sex-negation—

Sans love, sans charm, sans grace, sans everything.