With apologies to Lord Tennyson.

(“The grant of suffrage to women is repugnant to instincts that strike their roots deep in the order of nature. It runs counter to human reason, it flouts the teachings of experience and the admonitions of common sense.”—N.Y. Times, Feb. 7, 1915.)

Oh, that ‘twere possible

   After those words inane

For me to read The Times

   Ever again!

When I was wont to read it

   In the early morning hours,

In a mood ‘twixt wrath and mirth,

   I exclaimed: “Alas, Ye Powers,

These ideas are fainter, quainter

   Than anything on earth!”

A paper’s laid before me.

   Not thou, not like to thee.

Dear me, if it were possible

   The Times should ever see

How very far the times have moved

   (Spelt with a little “t”). 

Lovely Antiques, breathing in every line

The perfume of an age long passed away,

Wafting us back to 1829,

Museum pieces of a by-gone day,

You should not languish in the public press

Where modern thought might reach and do you harm,

And vulgar youth insult your hoariness,

Missing the flavor of your old world charm;

You should be locked, where rust cannot corrode

In some old rosewood cabinet, dimmed by age,

With silver-lustre, tortoise shell and Spode;

And all would cry, who read your yellowing page:

            “Yes, that’s the sort of thing that men believed

            Before the First Reform Bill was conceived!”