And when that happened, and you had bred The requisite children, living and dead, To pity the fool and comfort the weak And always let the gentlemen speak, To succor your love from deep-struck roots When gentlemen went to bed in their boots, And manage a gentleman’s whole plantation In the manner befitting your female station.

This was the creed that her mother taught her And the creed that she taught to every daughter. She knew her Bible⁠—and how to flirt With a swansdown fan and a brocade skirt. For she trusted in God but she liked formalities And the world and Heaven were both realities. —In Heaven, of course, we should all be equal, But, until we came to that golden sequel, Gentility must keep to gentility Where God and breeding had made things stable, While the rest of the cosmos deserved civility But dined in its boots at the second-table.