as she,
Though robed in simpler raiment.
Is there no modern Nemesis
To deal out to such ghouls as this
Just destiny's repayment?

O modish Moloch of the air!
The eagle swooping from his lair
On bird-world's lesser creatures,
Is spoiler less intent to slay
Than this unsparing Bird of Prey,
With Woman's form and features.

Woman? We know her slavish thrall
To the strange sway despotical
Of that strong figment, Fashion;
But is there nought in _this_ to move
The being born for grace and love
To shamed rebellious passion?

'Tis a she-shape by Mode arrayed!
The dove that coos in verdant shade,
The lark that shrills in ether,
The humming-bird with jewelled wings,--
Ten thousand tiny songful things
Have lent her plume and feather.

They die in hordes that she may fly,
A glittering horror, through the sky.
Their voices, hushed in anguish,
Find no soft echoes in her ears,
Or the vile trade in pangs and fears
Her whims support would languish.

What cares she that those wings were torn
From shuddering things, of plumage shorn
To make _her_ plumes imposing?
That when--for _her_--bird-mothers die,
Their broods in long-drawn agony
Their eyes--for _her_--are closing?

What cares she that the woods, bereft
Of feathered denizens, are left
To swarming insect scourges?
On Woman's heart, when once made hard
By Fashion, Pity's gentlest bard
Love's plea all vainly urges.

A Harpy, she, a Bird of Prey,
Who on her slaughtering skyey way,
Beak-striketh and claw-clutcheth.
But Ladies who own not her sway,
_Will_ you not lift white hands to stay
The shameless slaughter which to-day
Your sex's honour toucheth?

* * * * *

THE SEVEN AGES OF WOMAN.

(_AS SIR JAMES CRICHTON BROWNE SEEMS PROPHETICALLY TO SEE THEM._)

Woman's world's a stage,
And modern women will be ill-cast players;
They'll have new exits and strange entrances,
And one She will play many mannish parts,
And these her Seven Ages. First the infant
"Grinding" and "sapping" in its mother's arms,
And then the pinched High-School girl, with packed satchel,
And worn anaemic face, creeping like cripple
Short-sightedly to school. Then the "free-lover,"
Mouthing out IBSEN, or some cynic ballad
Made against matrimony. Then a spouter,
Full of long words and windy; a wire-pul