When lovely Woman stoops to smoke (A vice in which she often glories), Or sees the somewhat doubtful joke In after-dinner stories, Who is it to her bedroom rushes To hide the fervor of her blushes?
When Susan’s skirt’s a trifle short, Or Mary’s manner rather skittish, Who is it, with a fretful snort (So typically British), Emits prolonged and startled cries, Suggestive of a pained surprise?
Who is it, tell me, in effect, Who loves to centre her attentions On all who wilfully neglect Society’s conventions, And seems eternally imbued With saponaceous rectitude?
’Tis Mrs. Grundy, deaf and blind To anything the least romantic, Combining with a narrow mind A point of view pedantic, Since no one in the world can stop her From thinking ev’rything improper.
The picture or the marble bust At any public exhibition Evokes her unconcealed disgust And rouses her suspicion, If human forms are shown to us In puris naturalibus.
The bare, in any sense or shape. She looks upon as wrong or faulty; Piano-legs she likes to drape, If they are too décoll’té; For long with horror she has viewed The naked Truth, for being nude.
On modern manners that efface The formal modes of introduction She is at once prepared to place The very worst construction, — And frowns, suspicious and sardonic, On friendships that are termed Platonic.
The English restaurants must close At twelve o’clock at night on Sunday, To suit (or so we may suppose) The taste of Mrs. Grundy; On week-days, thirty minutes later, Ejected guests revile the waiter.
A sense of humor she would vote The sign of mental dissipations; She scorns whatever might promote The gaiety of nations; Of lawful fun she seems no fonder Than of the noxious dooblontonder!
And if you wish to make her blench And snap her teeth together tightly, Say something in Parisian French, And close one optic slightly. “Rien ne va plus! Enfin, alors!” She leaves the room and slams the door!
O Mrs. Grundy, do, I beg, To false conclusions cease from rushing, And learn to name the human leg Without profusely blushing! No longer be (don’t think me rude)
That unalluring thing, the prude! No more patrol the world, I pray, In search of trifling social errors, Let “What will Mrs. Grundy say?” No longer have its terrors; Leave diatribe and objurgation To Mrs. Chant and Carrie Nation!
Mrs. Christopher Columbus
The bride grows pale beneath her veil, The matron, for the nonce, is dumb, Who listens to the tragic tale Of Mrs. Christopher Columb: Who lived and died (so says report) A widow of the herbal sort.
Her husband upon canvas wings Would brave the Ocean, tempest-tost; He had a cult for finding things Which nobody had ever lost, And Mrs. C. grew almost frantic When he discovered the Atlantic.
But nothing she could do or say Would keep her Christopher at home; Without delay he sailed away Across what poets call “the foam,” While neighbors murmured, “What a shame!” And wished their husbands did the same.
He ventured on the highest C’s That reared their heads above the bar, Knowing the compass and the quays Like any operatic star; And funny friends who watched him do so Would call him “Robinson Caruso.”
But Mrs. C. remained indoors, And poked the fire and wound the clocks, Amused the children, scrubbed the floors, Or darned her absent husband’s socks. (For she was far too sweet and wise To darn the great explorer’s eyes.)
And when she chanced to look around At all the couples she had known, And realized how few had found A home as peaceful as her own, She saw how pleasant it may be To wed a chronic absentee.
Her husband’s absence she enjoyed, Nor ever asked him where he went, Thinking him harmlessly employed Discovering some Continent. Had he been always in, no doubt, Some day she would have found him out.
And so he daily left her side To travel o’er the ocean far, And she who, like the bard, had tried To “hitch her wagon to a star,” Though she was harnessed to a comet, Got lots of satisfaction from it.
To him returning from the West She proved a perfect anti-dote, Who loosed his Armour (beef compress’d) And sprayed his “automobile throat”; His health she kept a jealous eye on, And played PerUna to his lion!
And when she got him home again, And so could wear the jewels rare Which Isabella, Queen of Spain, Entrusted to her husband’s care, Her monetary wealth was “far Beyond the dreams of caviar!”
·····
A melancholy thing it is How few have known or understood The manifold advantages Of such herbaceous widowhood! (What is it ruins married lives But husbands … not to mention wives?)
O wedded couples of to-day, Pray take these principles to heart, And copy the Columbian way Of living happily apart. And so, to you, at any rate, Shall marriage be a “blessèd state.”