 | 'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition |  |
349
THE OLD ORDER.
Lo, they have had their day, a damnéd innings,
Played lightly for themselves alone,
And for those long and black arrears of sinnings,
No earthly penance can atone—
No human judge would dare condone
The crimes, which made a sport of widows' winnings,
And fattened out of foolish orphans' thinnings,
By tricks unknown,
And picked the bone
Before they chucked it to the dogs, whose spinnings
And tortured toil but fed their fiendish grinnings,
Of stone.
Played lightly for themselves alone,
And for those long and black arrears of sinnings,
No earthly penance can atone—
No human judge would dare condone
The crimes, which made a sport of widows' winnings,
And fattened out of foolish orphans' thinnings,
By tricks unknown,
And picked the bone
Before they chucked it to the dogs, whose spinnings
And tortured toil but fed their fiendish grinnings,
Of stone.
It has departed, the imperial story,
From their lascivious and dishonoured line,
To tried and truer hearts, to heads not hoary
In hells of passion and of wine;
They would not let the sunlight shine,
Save on the lordly Whig and landed Tory;
And hands that held the sceptre now are gory
From cruel mine,
Where women pine;
And that grim sentence old, memenlo mori,
Has stamped on every palace of their glory,
Its sign.
From their lascivious and dishonoured line,
To tried and truer hearts, to heads not hoary
In hells of passion and of wine;
They would not let the sunlight shine,
Save on the lordly Whig and landed Tory;
And hands that held the sceptre now are gory
From cruel mine,
Where women pine;
And that grim sentence old, memenlo mori,
Has stamped on every palace of their glory,
Its sign.
Ah, we for ages sad have borne the blighting,
That is no simple outward spot,
But spreads about the soul against it fighting
The poison of its hateful rot,
A dark inexpiable blot;
And we have suffered all the pain and slighting,
For which dawned never day of honest righting,
On helpless lot,
By men forgot;
And we, when shared should they have our benighting,
Have ministered for years to their delighting,
For what?
That is no simple outward spot,
But spreads about the soul against it fighting
The poison of its hateful rot,
A dark inexpiable blot;
And we have suffered all the pain and slighting,
For which dawned never day of honest righting,
On helpless lot,
By men forgot;
And we, when shared should they have our benighting,
Have ministered for years to their delighting,
For what?
It totters, as accursèd, the old order,
With the avenging earthquake throes,
That shake from centre to the farthest border,
The kingdom of our passing foes;
Who would not set their haughty toes
Within the mud, where woman stands as warder,
Without the solace that they should afford her,
In winter woes,
Like icy floes;
And for the bloated priest and prince marauder,
Their time is sealed by change, the great recorder,
And goes
With the avenging earthquake throes,
That shake from centre to the farthest border,
The kingdom of our passing foes;
Who would not set their haughty toes
Within the mud, where woman stands as warder,
Without the solace that they should afford her,
In winter woes,
Like icy floes;
And for the bloated priest and prince marauder,
Their time is sealed by change, the great recorder,
And goes
| 'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition | |