Classic Poem

Great Goddess! In thy courts I fearless stand,
And face a tyrant ruling every land;
In thee behold a despot whose dark sway
Moulds human lives as potters mould their clay.
No monarch seated on his regal throne
Dare give thee battle, or thy claims disown;
More potent than barbaric rulers, thou,
Feared more than Western King with crownèd brow;
Served by the savage and the civilized—
Thy sentence dreaded, and thy favour prized!

Foul deity! Thy cheeks should burn with shame,
Thy glory perish by consuming flame!
The tyrant Nero's hands were steeped in crime,
But thou shedd'st human blood in every clime;
Inflictest torture, exquisitely keen,
And forgest chains for peasant, lord and queen.
At thy command the mother slays her child;
For thee God's sacred image is defiled—
The body mutilated, and the soul
Severed from hope of its eternal goal!

Accursed Goddess! Lo, thy subjects kneel
And kiss thy feet, and for thy smile appeal.
There bends the Indian, with his flatten'd brow,
And there wasp-waisted English matrons bow:
And Chinese dame with “golden lily foot,”
On which Deformity her stamp has put.
The proud Maori chief, with tattoed face,
And South Sea cannibal, have found a place;
Yet still the hosts of slaves and martyrs come,
Who at thy word would be maim'd, deaf and dumb!

How varied, and how hideous, is thy train
Of willing sufferers of horrid pain!
Blinded by Folly, and by Custom bound;
By fear and envy swayed and hemmed around!
Here the Ascetic shows his lengthened nails
To Turkish ladies wrapped in muffling veils;
There the stern Judge struts forth with wig and gown,
And sceptered Monarch with his golden crown;
While near, a fair Maganya woman goes,
Who boasts a huge ring pendant from her nose!

For thee, O Fashion, maidens are confined
By harem's walls, to Nature's wonders blind;
For thee poor babes are wedded ere they grow
To think and love, and Life's great duties know;
For thee the flesh is pierc'd, and fair cheeks scarred,
Art is outrag'd, and Nature's image marred.
Base Fashion! Fiend incarnate! in thy name
The funeral pyre shoots forth its fatal flame;
And there the Indian squaw laments her chief,—
Compelled to die, forsooth, to prove her grief!

Atrocious folly! shameful sin and crime,
That Man should crawl when God would have him climb!
Are we but brainless apes that we should heed
The laws that thou, vile Fashion, hast decreed?
Learn from thee what to do, and eat, and wear?
Borrow our faith, our action, and our prayer?
Be other's echoes? Ne'er use Will or Brain?
Be shackled fools, deform'd and rack'd with pain?
Nay, Goddess! bold and strong in wisdom grown,
We curse thy name, and kneel at Reason's throne!