Chapter III

The great procession came up the street, With a wagon of virgins, sour and sweet; Each bearing the bloom of recent date, Each misrepresenting a single State. There was California, pious and prim, And Louisiana, humming a hymn; The Texas lass was the smallest one-- Rhode Island weighed the tenth of a ton; The Empire State was pure as a pearl, And Massachusetts a modest girl; Vermont was red as the blush of a rose-- And the goddess sported a turn-up nose; And looked, free sylph, where she painfully sat, The worlds she would give to be out of that. And in this way The maidens gay Flashed up the street on the beautiful day, That gave us-- _Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!_ (With some sacrifices, our mothers would say,) Our glorious Independence!