Ladies' Column.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4907, 24 March 1894, Page 3

Ladies' Column.

THE CRY OF THE REVOLTING DAUGHTERS.

1 [Poll Mall Budgat.) * Do you hear the daughters crying, oh you mothers, Does it thunder in your p.ira? . . They are claiming to be equal with their brotners, And where -will they stop— poor de.-iM ? 1 The young lambs are safe within the meadows, The young birds sit tight within the nest, The young fawns know nothing of life s shadows, Tbe young flowers nsed tending like the rest. ' But the old-young daughters, ob you mothers, They are crying bitterly ; . They are crying for the freedom of their brothers i To go out upon the spree. They look up with oppressed and pallid faces, i And are mad as mad can be ; For man's cruel tyranny effacos Tbe divine equality. " This slow pace," they say, is very dreary ; " Our young feet are very far from weak ; «' Of labours in the household wo are weary ; " And husbands— they ai'e very far to seek. "We aro grown-up people quite now, and not children, - " Yet the. world to us is cold.; - _ 1 . " And we canuot see, in spite of much bewildering, '•* Where we differ from the old." Alas! alasJ the daughters,— they are seeking What 'twere better not to have. Into bifurcated raiment they are sneaking, And tbeir heads they wish to shave. Go forth, daughters, if you will, into the city ; Shout and wanton aa the little mashers do; Eeap your harvest of wild oats, nor count it pity - r Laugh at risks, and trust, to luck to pull you through. Soon you'll answer that the wild oats of the gutter Are like deadly weeds that twine ; And you'll much prefer your homely bread-and-butter To the f unjes of Circe's -rfine. Yet well may the daughters set before them . All the glamour and the fun. They know not the'hollowness, the boredom, Or the things they ought to shun. They see the sins of man, without his sorrow ; They emulate man's stride, without hiß strength ; Are rakes — without the headache of the morrow; Are libertines— within a tether's length. Are old in thought, but in experience, eoothly A narrow path judiciously they keep ; And when their aspirations run unsmoothly, ; • Why, they weep ! Why they weep ! They look at you with pallid sullea faces, But their sentiments are worst ; For they tell you that the devils in their places Are not more confined or curst. "How long?" they say: "How long, ah! Mother Grundy, "Will you trample where : our bosom thrills and springs, "Make our life one long perpetual mournful Sunday, "Keep ue tied beneath our mothers' apronstrings ?" They c*y aloud on King and crossing-sweeper, " Ye shall also bear our ban ! " For, though slavery is hard, what galls us deeper '.' Js tho liberty of man."