Behold that house on Pleasant street,
Just let us enter there;
All arrangements so complete,
Appropriate and fair.
Music in Adjoining room
So grateful to the ear;
Fragrant flowers in fullest bloom
And beauty doth appear.
Choice books there on the table lie,
Wisdom for great and small;
The pantry with its full supply;
There're pictures on the wall.
The father comes at closing day,
The mother greets with joy,
The laughing children 'round him play
He pets his toddling boy.
Peace pervades that happy place,
Where all is bright and free;
Its loving inmates go and come,
In sweetest harmony.
Grief has blighted that fair bloom,
The work of cursed rum,
The fetid breath of the saloon
Has to that dwelling come.
A thump is heard against the door,
The children flee away;
They wish to see his face no more
While whiskey rules the day.
The faithful wife opens the door,
The husband staggers in,
He stumbles prostrate on the floor,
Borne down by rum and gin.
While helping him unto his bed--
Oh! who could tell us why--
He clenched his fist and struck her head
And gave a blackened eye.
His bank deposits slip away
To the rumsellers till,
Whose business is from day to day
The drunkards' graves to fill
Piano gone by sheriff's sale,
The music hushed and still;
The mother's sigh, the daughter's wail
Now the apartments fill.
The pictures gone from off the wall,
The carpets from the floor,
To meet necessity's stern call,
Keep hunger from the door.
The daughter's jewels all are gone
Unto the broker's fled;
Her choicest clothing one by one,
To buy their daily bread.
Vultures in human form await
To make this maid their game
Should hunger, want and cruel fate
Crowd out all sense of shame.
Oh! this horrid ghastly wound,
The work of cursed rum;
Oh! can a healing balm be foundation
This side the world to come.
IN FAVOR of WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE
Our fathers thought it was a cause
Well worth their undertaking.
To fight those arbitrary laws
They had no hand in making.
The principle they now ignore,
Since we have been a nation;
Taxing women o'er and o'er,
Debarred from legislation.
Great Britain thought we would not fight
Or dare to show resistance;
They looked to might to make it right
With justice at a distance.
Woman in the background held,
Her soul for wisdom yearning
While her loving heart has swelled
With a desire for learning.
You shall not vote the men declare,
Ye daughters and your mothers.
Then go and set a hellish snare
To trap their sons and brothers.
Because the women do not fight
Use the sword or rifle
Is relegated out of sight
As a useless trifle.
The whiskey ring, her greatest foe
Oft blocks her aspirations;
It dares not let her vote we know
'Twould send it from the nation.
The colleges excluded her;
With minds of small dimension,
They tho't their lofty teachings were
Beyond her comprehension.
The sword of might can't make it right,
The woman's pen is stronger.
Her tongue and pen will tame their might,
They can't hold our much longer.
She is keeping steady pace
with aspiring brothers,
Winning for herself a place
Among D. D's and others.
Soon her voice will resound
In halls of legislation,
Then love and justice will abound
To purify the nation.