A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE

Reformer and feminst Frances Gage wrote this optimistic song (to music by John Hutchinson) in the 1850s.

                                                       A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE


One hundred years hence what a change will be made,
In politics, morals, religion and trade;
In Statesmen who wrangle or ride on the fence,
These things will be altered a hundred years hence.

Our laws the will be non-compulsory rules,
Our prisons converrted to national schools,
The pleasure of sinning -- 'tis all a pretence,
And the people will see it a hundred years hence.

Lying, cheating and fraud will be laid on the shelf.
Men will neither get drunk nor be bound up in self;
But all live together as neighbors and friends,
Just as good people ought to a hundred years hence.

Then woman, man's partner, man's equal shall stand,
When beauty and harmony govern the land,
And to think for one's self will be no offence,
The world will be thinking a hundred years hence.

Oppression and war will be heard of no more,
Nor the blood of a slave have its print on our shore;
Conventions will then be a needless expence,
The world will be thinking a hundred year's hence.

Instead of speak making to satisfy wrong,
All will join the glad chorus to sing Freedom's song.
And if the millennium is not a pretence,
We'll all be good brothers a hundred years hence.


from Music for Patriots, Politicians, and Presidents:  Harmonies and Discords of the First Hundred Years by Vera Bodsky Lawrence (Macmillan, 1975)