Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO COLLEGE GIRLS, by AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO COLLEGE GIRLS, by                    
First Line: The college girls of a former day
Last Line: Of today and the years before!
Subject(s): Courtship; Girls; Love; Women's Rights; Feminism


The college girls of a former day
Were earnest, sweet, demure and prim;
Calisthenics mild was their wildest fray,
While to mission strands they sang their way
With many a gospel hymn.

They wore no golf-skirts trimmed in red,
Nor did they twang the archer's bow;
Butler and logic were daily bread,
And their manners left us naught to dread;
Those girls of long ago.

But the modern girl! Alas for the hour
Which rigged her out in togs of state;
Which gave her gladiatorial power,
With equal suffrage as her dower;
This maid that's up to date!

The rostrum waits on her rosy lip
And the baton knows her practised hand;
While her arguments for man's comradeship
Make many a rash opponent trip;
This girl that holds the land!

She's taller than her brothers are,
And swings along with a noble gait;
She beats them over the vaulting bar;
In running and swimming, she leaves them afar;
This last "Try-out" of fate.

But the blood throbs warm in the lifted chest,
Whatever her trend to the passing show;
And as long as her gowns are the tailor's best,
We know that a feminine heart's in the breast
As surely as long ago.

But the world shall be glad for the new as the old,
And hearth-stones as bright as they were of yore;
For love flutters alike 'neath the kerchief's fold
Or the sweater that's lettered in blue or gold;
So a toast to the girls both new and old,
Of today and the years before!





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