The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

FROM A POEM ADDRESSED TO WOMAN.
Oh! let us banish, then, ideas that bind
In chains of slavery the female mind;
Nor think that little jealousies will start
To thwart the affections of each wedded heart:
Labours must lighten, when love's sweetest ties
Unite in cultured souls:—new pleasures rise
In the mild varied blossom she displays,
That takes its golden tint from learning's rays!
I love not pedantry, and partial ill
Hath always mixed with good—and always will;
But yet consider—pedantry appears
Not in the learned alone; the numbered years
Of hoary ignorance this garb assumes,
And vainly flutters in pedantick plumes!
The froward fair one, ere from school set free,
Plagues ye to death with rich embroidery,
And (dreadful torment) amplifies her chat
With "this how charming—but how heavenly that;"
Whilst, on the lawn of grammar to intrench,
Your ears are stunned with scraps of murdered French.
And older grown, she drawls the tender scenes,
(Culled from romances) of imprisoned queens,
Or dying heroines—then with tragic start,
Presses her hand against her bleeding heart;
As much of pedantry in this I find,
As if, with highly cultivated mind,
She ostentatiously displayed her store
Of classic authors and recondite lore—
And much more studiously I'd shun the first.
Though with the last alternative accurst.