Bids men leave their own workshops to work in committees,
And their own wedded wives to protect yours and mine!
That we working-men prophets are sadly mistaken,
If yours is not, Hogbin, a durable fame,
As lasting as England’s philosopher Bacon,
Whom your ancestors housed, if we judge by his name.
When the moment arrives that we’ve won the good fight,
And broken the chains of laws, churches, and marriages,
When no infants are born under six feet in height,
And our chimney-sweeps mount up a flue in their carriages—
That glorious time when our daughters and sons
Enjoy a blue Monday each day of the week,
And a clean shirt is classed with the mastodon’s bones,
Or a mummy from Thebes, an undoubted antique—
Then, then, my dear Hogbin, your statue in straw,
By some modern Pigmalion delightfully wrought,
Shall embellish the Park, and our youths’ only law
Shall be to be Hogbins in feeling and thought.
H.
