Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/34

22 But the cant of the ultra-suasion school
 * Unsinews the hand and thigh,

And preaches the creed of the weak to rule,
 * And the strong to struggle and die.

Our schools are spurred to the fatal race,
 * As if health were the nation's sin.

Till the head grows large, and the vampire face
 * Is gorged on the limbs so thin.

Our women have entered the abstract fields.
 * And avaunt with the child and home:

While the rind of science a pleasure yields
 * Shall they care for the lives to come?

And they ape the manners of manly times
 * In their sterile and worthless life.

Till the man of the future augments his crimes
 * With a raid for a Sabine wife.

Ho, white-maned waves of the Western Sea,
 * That ride and roll to the strand!

Hr, strong-winged birds, never blown a-lee
 * By the gales that sweep toward land!