A BACHELOR'S GROWL.

Oh, the beautiful women, the women of ancient days,
The ripe and the red, who are done and dead,
With never a word of praise;
The rich, round SALLIES and SUSANS, the POLLIES and JOANS and PRUES,
Who guarded their fame, and saw no shame
In walking in low-heeled shoes.

They never shrieked on a platform; they never desired a vote;
They sat in a row and liked things slow,
While they knitted or patched a coat.
They lived with nothing of Latin, and a jolly sight less of Greek,
And made up their books, and changed their cooks
On an average once a week.

They never ventured in hansoms, nor climbed to the topmost 'bus,
Nor talked with a twang in the latest slang;
They left these fashions to us.
But, ah, she was sweet and pleasant, though possibly not well-read,
The excellent wife who cheered your life,
And vanished at ten to bed.

And it's oh the pity, the pity that time should ever annul
The wearers of skirts who mended shirts,
And never thought nurseries dull.
For everything's topsy-turvy now, the men are bedded at ten,
While the women sit up, and smoke and sup
In the Club of the Chickless Hen.