Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-39.djvu/872

What does it cost, this garniture of death?
It costs the life which God alone can give;
It costs dull silence where was music's breath;
It costs dead joy, that foolish pride may live.
Ah, life, and joy, and song, depend upon it.
Are costly trimmings for a woman's bonnet!

Oh, who would stop the sweet pulse of a lark,
That flutters in such ecstasy of bliss,
Or lay a robin's bright breast cold and stark,
For such a paltry recompense as this?
Oh, you who love your babies, think upon it.
Mothers are slaughtered, just to trim your bonnet!

Will Herod never cease to rule the land.
That we must slay sweet innocency so?
Is joy so cheap, or happiness sure planned?
Tell me, O friend, who art acquaint with Woe!
Does thy sad heart proclaim no protest on it?
Wouldst thou slay happiness, just for a bonnet?

And must God's choirs that through His forests rove,
Granting sweet matinées to high and low.
Must His own orchestra of field and grove,
Himself their leader, be disbanded so?
Nay, nay, O God, proclaim thy ban upon it:
Guard thy dear birds from sport, and greed, and bonnet!

Their fine-spun hammocks swinging in the breeze
Should be as safe as babies' cradles are,
And no rude hand that tears them from the trees.
Or dares a sweet bird's property to mar.
Deserves a woman's touch or kiss upon it.
Unless—she wears dead birds upon her bonnet!

Dead birds! and dead for gentle woman's sake.
To feed awhile her vanity's poor breath!
And yet the foolish bells sweet clamor make
And tell of One whose power hath vanquished death!
Ah, Easter-time has a reproach upon it
While birds are slain to trim a woman's bonnet!

May Riley Smith.