A century was fading fast,
 When o’er its closing decade passed
 A matron’s figure, chaste, yet bold,
 Who held within her girdle’s fold
          A bran’ new hatchet.

 The jointists smiled within their bars,
 ’Mid bottles, mirrors and cigars—­
 The woman passed behind each screen,
 And soon ocurred a “literal” scene—­
          Rum, ruin, racket!

 At first she “moral suasion” tried,
 But lawless men mere “talk” deride:—­
 ’Twas then she seized her household ax
 And for enforcing law by acts,
          Found nought to match it.

 The work thus wrought with zeal discreet,
 Has saved that town from rum complete;
 Proving that woman’s moral force
 Like man’s, is held, as last resource,
          By sword or hatchet.

 And following up that dauntless raid,
 The nation welcomes her crusade;
 All o’er the land, pure women charmed,
 Are eager forming, each one armed
          With glittering hatchets.

 Talk of “defenders of the nation!”
 Woman’s slight arm sends consternation
 ’Mong its worst foes, on social fields,
 Worse than the “Mauser,” when she wields
          The “smashing” hatchet.

 Mahommed sought by arts refined,
 To raise his standard o’er mankind;
 But found success for aye denied,
 Until at length he boldly tried
          The battle-hatchet.

 When soon his power imperial, shone
 O’er countless tribes, in widening zone;
 And wine was banished from the board
 Of Moslem millions, by the sword
          And victor’s hatchet.

 So may it be with this great nation,
 When woman tests her high vocation;
 Persuasion proves a futile power
 To quell the joints, but quick they cower
          At the whirling hatchets.

 True chivalry must come again,
 And men, more noble, but less vain,
 Responding to its modern sense,
 Guard woman, while in self-defense
          She plies her hatchet.

 When honor bright appeals to men
 “The weak confounds the mighty,” then
 Side doors and slot-machines must close
 And such games hide, when women pose
          With sharpened hatchets.

 ’Else are men brutes, and all their pride
 And gallant valor, they must hide
 In coward shirking.  This shameful end
 They must accept, or else defend
          The “home-guard” hatchet.

 ’Tis woman’s crucial, fateful hour,
 Her fine soul’s test, ’gainst man’s coarse power. 
 In war, she can not be man’s peer,
 But for home’s weal, all men sincere
          Bow to her hatchet.

 Man’s “Vigilance” is oft condoned,
 When Vice and Crime has been enthroned. 
 Shall women then, be more to blame,
 When she In Virtue’s sacred name
          Raises her hatchet?

 ’Tis she must grasp the nation’s prize—­
 A pure, proud home, earth’s paradise. 
 The joints must go, but, never till
 Woman exerts her potent will
          And holy hatchet.