Adeline Whitney - Mother Goose for Grown Folks

A second negative affirms;
And two magnetic poles
Of charge identical, repel,—
As sameness sunders souls.
Touched with a first, fresh suffering,
All solace is despised;
But gathered sorrows grow serene,
And grief is neutralized.

And he who, in the world's mêlée ,
Hath chanced the worse to catch,
May mend the matter, if he come
Back, boldly, to the scratch;
Minding the lesson he received
In boyhood, from his mother.
Whose cheery word, for many a bump,
Was, Up and take another!

"I had a little pony,
His name was Dapple Gray:
I lent him to a lady
To ride a mile away.
She whipped him,
She lashed him,
She rode him through the mire;
I would n't lend my pony now,
For all the lady's hire."

Our hobbies, of whatever sort
They be, mine honest friend,
Of fancy, enterprise, or thought,
'T is hardly wise to lend.

Some fair imagination, shrined
In form poetic, maybe,
You fondly trusted to the World,—
That most capricious Lady.

Or a high, romantic theory,
Magnificently planned,
In flush of eager confidence
You bade her take in hand.

But she whipped it, and she lashed it,
And bespattered it with mire,
Till your very soul felt stained within,
And scourged with stripes of fire.

Yet take this thought, and hold it fast,
Ye Martyrs of To-day!
That same great World, with all its scorn,
You 've lifted on its way!

"Hogs in the garden,—
Catch 'em, Towser!
Cows in the cornfield,—
Run, boys, run!
Fire on the mountains,—
Run, boys, run boys!
Cats in the cream-pot,—
Run, girls, run!"

I don't stand up for Woman's Right
Not I,—no, no!
The real lionesses fight,—
I let it go.

Yet, somehow, as I catch the call
Of the world's voice,
That speaks a summons unto all
Its girls and boys;

In such strange contrast still it rings
As church-bells' bome
To the pert sound of tinkling things
One hears at home;

And wakes an impulse, not germane
Perhaps, to woman,
Yet with a thrill that makes it plain
'T is truly human;—

A sudden tingle at the springs
Of noble feeling,
The spirit-power for valiant things
Clearly revealing.

But Eden's curse doth daily deal
Its certain dole,—
And the old grasp upon the heel
Holds back the soul!

So, when some rousing deed's to do,
To save a nation,
Or, on the mountains, to subdue
A conflagration,
Woman! the work is not for you;
Mind your vocation!
Out from the cream-pot comes a mew
Of tribulation!

Meekly the world's great exploits leave
Unto your betters;
So bear the punishment of Eve,
Spirit in fetters!

Only, the hidden fires will glow,
And, now and then,
A beacon blazeth out below
That startles men!

Some Joan, through battle-field to stake,
Danger embracing;
Some Florence, for sweet mercy's sake
Pestilence facing;
Whose holy valor vindicates
The royal birth
That, for its crowning, only waits
The end of earth;
And, haply, when we all stand freed,
In strength immortal,
Such virgin-lamps the host shall lead
Through heaven's portal!

"There was an old man of Tobago,
Who lived on rice, gruel, and sago,
Till, much to his bliss,
His physician said this:
To a leg, sir, of mutton, you may go.
He set a monkey to baste the mutton,
And ten pounds of butter he put on."

Chain up a child, and away he will go";
I have heard of the proverb interpreted so;
The spendthrift is son to the miser,—and
still,

When the Devil would work his most piti-
less will,
He sends forth the seven, for such embas-
sies kept,
To the house that is empty and garnished
and swept:
For poor human nature a pendulum seems.,
That must constantly vibrate between two
extremes.

The closer the arrow is drawn to the
bow,
Once slipped from the string, all the further
't will go:
Let a panic arise in the world of finance,
And the mad flight of Fashion be checked
by the chance,
It certainly seems a most wonderful thing,
When the ropes are let go again, how it
will swing!

And even the decent observance of Lent,
Stirs sometimes a doubt how the time has
been spent,
When Easter brings out the new bonnets
and gowns,
And a flood of gay colors o'erflows in the
towns.

So in all things the feast doth still follow
the fast,
And the force of the contrast gives zest to
the last;
And until he is tried, no frail mortal can
tell,
The inch being offered, he won't take the
ell.
We are righteously shocked at the follies
of fashion;
Nay, standing outside, may get quite in a
passion
At the prodigal flourishes other folks put
on:
But many good people this side of Tobago,
If respited once from their diet of sago,
Would outdo the monkey in basting the
mutton!

"Leg over leg
As the dog went to Dover;
When he came to a stile,
Jump he went over."

Perhaps you would n't see it here,
But, to my fancy, 't is quite clear
That Mother Goose just meant to show
How the dog Patience on doth go:

With steadfast nozzle, pointing low,—
Leg over leg, however slow,—
And labored breath, but naught complaining,
Still, at each footstep, somewhat gaining,—
Quietly plodding, mile on mile,
And gathering for a nervous bound
At every interposing stile,—
So traversing the tedious ground,
Till all at length, he measures over,
And walks, a victor, into Dover.

And, verily, no other way
Doth human progress win the day;
Step after step,—and o'er and o'er,—
Each seeming like the one before,
So that't is only once a while,—
When sudden Genius springs the stile
That marks a section of the plain,
Beyond whose bound fresh fields again
Their widening stretch untrodden sweep,—
The world looks round to see the leap.

Pale Science, in her laboratory,
Works on with crucible and wire
Unnoticed, till an instant glory
Crowns some high issue, as with fire,
And men, with wondering eyes awide,
Gauge great Invention's giant stride.

No age, no race, no single soul,
By lofty tumbling gains the goal.
The steady pace it keeps between,—
The little points it makes unseen,—
By these, achieved in gathering might,
It moveth on, and out of sight,
And wins, through all that's overpast,
The city of its hopes at last.

"Hark, hark!
The dogs do bark;
Beggars are coming to town:
Some in rags,
Some in tags,"
And some in velvet gowns!"

Coming, coming always!
Crowding into earth;
Seizing on this human life,
Beggars from the birth.