---
title: Times and Seasons
description: Issues of 1840 to 1841.
authors:
  - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
editors:
  - Ebenezer Robinson
  - Don Carlos Smith
  - Smith, Joseph, Jr.
  - Taylor, John
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - newspaper
  - times-and-seasons
  - nauvoo
  - nineteenth-century
periodical: Times and Seasons
volume: 2
number: 10
published: 1841-03-15
publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor
publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois
language: en
type: article
reference: "“Sonnet on Tight Lacing,” *Times and Seasons* 2, no. 10 (March 15, 1841): 357."
printed_title: SONNET ON TIGHT LACING.
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1841-03-15_2_10
  transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v2n10.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair)
  identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1841-03-15_2_10
start_page: 357
end_page: 357
curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement.
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1841 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States
  source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1841-03-15_2_10
  publication_year: 1841
---

# Sonnet on Tight Lacing

<!-- page:357 -->

TO AMERICAN MOTHERS.

If ye would crash the tree, before one flower

Hath made its fragrance or its fruitage known;

If ye would break the harp, before one tone

Hath told the compass of its varied power;

If ye would quench the lamp at twilight hour,

Or plant the brier where the rose had grown,

Or crush the statue in the encasing stone-

Then make the "CORSET CURSE" your daughter's dower!

But, oh, if ye revere your God's impression

Stamp'd on the human form! If ye would arm

Your sons against consumption's ghastly charm;

Banish this vice of every christian nation!

And know that MURDER-in whatever form-

Of self, or offspring, is no slight transgression!

Philadelphia, Nov. 1840. P.