FAMILY HISTORY: POETRY Collection written by Elsie Strawn ARMSTRONG
  
  File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Les Howard Strawn
  
  Copyright 2006.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
  ________________________________________________
  
  
  In 1850, when the hoops began to age fairly, three or four young ladies asked me 
  to tell them some rhyme about the hoops.  I told them it was nothing to me, let 
  those wear hoops who chose; but they kept quizzing me about the hoops until 
  finally I told them as follows:
  
  I am close approaching seventy,
      Which is man's appointed time,
  And thirty years ago
      I supposed I passed my prime.
  
  I have lived to see the fashion
      Come round, and three times more,
  But I never saw the odium
      Of the frightful hoops before.
  
  And from the best account
      That I can get or learn,
  It's about two hundred years
      Since the last hoops were worn.
  
  And I've always heard them spoke on
      With deep contempt and scorn,
  And I little thought that I should live
      To ever see them worn.
  
  But they'll be of short duration,
      They're so inconvenient, mean and ugly,
  For our ladies wish to dress themselves
      Complete and neat and snugly.
  
  And to see them try to sit
      In an arm chair or a cradle,
  And trying to take the dinner up
      With the fork or ladle.
  
  The hoops, O, The hoops!
      They are so much in the way,
  At everything they try to do,
      And that, from day to day.
  
  And then to see the infant
      Upon the hoops lying,
  Groaning and moaning,
      And then most piteous crying.
  
  At the torture it is suffering
      Upon its mother's knee,
  O, Inhuman, cruel mother!
      You are ahead of me.
  
  Now lay aside the hoops,
      And despise them all the while,
  And make your lap a resting place
      For your tender child.
  
  I think it was some scalawag,
      The fag of creation,
  Destitute of principle,
      Good sense or reputation.
  
  That again got up the wreck
      Of troubles long ago,
  That Judge Addison and others
      Routed and scouted so.
  
  And now it's on our sidewalks
      Just as it was before,
  The old and young are all shoved off,
      As in the days of yore.
  
  Not the least respect is shown
      To the younger or the aged,
  No wonder our authorities
      Become so much enraged.
  
  They will soon arraign you up
      To answer for your crime,
  As they had to do in Europe
      In the days of olden time.
  
  Now, ladies, I advise you,
      To lay aside the hoops
  No matter what they're made of
      Wood, brass, bone or ropes,
  
  How can you bear such burdens,
      Just to make a bulk and show,
  Submit to such mead drudgery,
      How can you stoop so low?