We have seen the complaint of the red-legged Zou Zou,
Understand his sad case, and pity him too!
He’s shunned in hall, he’s cut on the street,
And scorned by each lady he happens to meet;
What meaneth this change? it was not so of yore
When he visited friends in sweet Baltimore—
The change is in us, and the change is in you.
And a change is in all things since that time, Zou Zou,
You came then as friends, ’twas a pleasure to greet,
You come now as foes, it is maddening to meet;
And our brain it will burn, and our blood it will boil
’Till you take your rude feet from our Maryland soil.
We know it is useless, and foolish and wrong,
To be guilty of things that you tell in your song,
But women are quick and not given to musing,
They’ve no thanks for “Protection” that’s not of their choosing—
A power that would shield us, but our friends from us sever,
Revolts us at once—makes us Rebels for ever.
Just think of the ladies in the city of “Tea,”
Though not quite so warm and impulsive as we;
Would they walk with or talk with, or smilingly glance,
On a Southerner armed with his musket and lance,
Who took up quarters, as tho’ ’twas his right,
And staid there as long as seemed good in his sight,
Dispensing to father and brothers and friends
Such justice as suited to further his ends?
Do you think they would greet with a cordial face
The men you were striving your best to displace?
Would you challenge their favor, would you ask them to smile
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On the men who were planting their cannon meanwhile
To destroy your fair city, to ruin each home
While the loved ones, in danger, and loneliness roam?
We need not to answer, each woman can say
How her feelings would prompt her—deny it who may—
Go back where you came from, stay there for a time,
Learn to look on Secession as less of a crime—
Let the South make the trial to live by itself,
The North has enough both of prudence and pelf.
It needs not the aid of us miserable sinners,
So let us alone to earn our own dinners.
And Helen, and Phœbe, and all the bright train
Of ladies, whose names you have brought in your strain,
Would be cheerful and joyous and happy again,
Not seeming as now to be haters of men.
If Jeff Davis should come, as he possible may,
We should look upon that as a jubilee day.
(And we hope to dispense with this bad Burnside weather
The ships and the soldiers may move off together.)
The sun would then shine, dry the “mud” from the street
Making it fir for the daintiest feet—
And “maidens in white” might well “dance” to see
The man who had conquered—and rendered us free—
And the man with the “name,” the invincible “Beau,”
His “Regard” we regard as the highest we know,
You may call him a rebel, a traitor, or felon,
But he’ll show us a “plan” that will vanquish McClellan,
So go back to your city, put on your own clothes,
When you come here again we won’t meet as foes:
If you take us as friends, we’ll be faithful and true,
But we now keep our smiles for our Southern Zou Zou.
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