Ii

In Time of Peace

What's this? You've wed an alien, Yet you ask for legislation To guard your nationality? We're shocked at your demand. A woman when she marries Takes her husband's name and nation: She should love her husband only. What's a woman's native land?

"Oh, That 'Twere Possible!"

With apologies to Lord Tennyson.

("The grant of suffrage to women is repugnant to instincts that strike their roots deep in the order of nature. It runs counter to human reason, it flouts the teachings of experience and the admonitions of common sense."--N.Y. Times, Feb. 7, 1915.)

Oh, that 'twere possible After those words inane For me to read The Times Ever again!

When I was wont to read it In the early morning hours, In a mood 'twixt wrath and mirth, I exclaimed: "Alas, Ye Powers, These ideas are fainter, quainter Than anything on earth!"

A paper's laid before me. Not thou, not like to thee. Dear me, if it were possible The Times should ever see How very far the times have moved (Spelt with a little "t").

The Times Editorials

Lovely Antiques, breathing in every line The perfume of an age long passed away, Wafting us back to 1829, Museum pieces of a by-gone day, You should not languish in the public press Where modern thought might reach and do you harm, And vulgar youth insult your hoariness, Missing the flavor of your old world charm; You should be locked, where rust cannot corrode In some old rosewood cabinet, dimmed by age, With silver-lustre, tortoise shell and Spode; And all would cry, who read your yellowing page: "Yes, that's the sort of thing that men believed Before the First Reform Bill was conceived!"