The March of Progress.

The March of Progress.

I fain would have the world both wise and free;
Men’s minds and bodies nurtured with all good;
Each child supplied with needful clothes and food
And train’d in healthy knowledge, and liberty.
I would have women truly womanly, 5
And not, as now, some toiling hard to gain
Scant food and clothes in poverty and pain;
Whilst others, scorning honest industry,
Waste their whole lives in vain frivolity,—
The toys of fashion, helpmates unto none. 10
The day will come when usefulness alone
Will be esteem’d, and true gentility
Be common unto all. We cannot stay
The March of Progress on its onward way.

George Markham Tweddell
p. 29 [in Miscellaneous Sonnets]
Voice of Masonry, June, 1890.