But two seasons kill romance,
Leave one’s views of life quite clear.
Why, if Will Latrobe had asked
When he left two years ago,
I’d have thrown up all and gone
Out to Kansas, do you know?
Fancy me a settler’s wife!
Blest escape, dear, was it not?
Yes; it’s hardly in my line
To enact “Love in a Cot.”
Well, you see, I’d had my swing,
Been engaged to eight or ten,
Got to stop some time, of course,
So it don’t much matter when.
Auntie hates old maids, and thinks
Every girl should marry young—
On that theme my whole life long
I have heard the changes sung.
So, ma belle, what could I do?
Charley wants a stylish wife.
We’ll suit well enough, no fear,
When we settle down for life.
But for love-stuff! See my ring!
Lovely, isn’t it? Solitaire.
Nearly made Maud Hinton turn
Green with envy and despair.
Her’s ain’t half so nice, you see.
Did I write you, Belle, about
How she tried for Charley, till
I sailed in and cut her out?
Now, she’s taken Jack McBride,
I believe it’s all from pique—
Threw him over once, you know—
Hates me so she’ll scarcely speak.
Oh, yes! Grace Church, Brown, and that—
Pa won’t mind expense at last
I’ll be off his hands for good;
Cost a fortune two years past.
My trousseau shall outdo Maud’s,
I’ve carte blanche from Pa, you know—
Mean to have my dress from Worth!
Won’t she be just RAVING though!
—_Scribner’s Monthly Magazine, 1874._
Women are often extremely humorous in their newspaper letters, excelling in that department. As critics they incline to satire. No one who read them at the time will ever forget Mrs. Runkle’s review of “St. Elmo,” or Gail Hamilton’s criticism of “The Story of Avis,” while Mrs. Rollins, in the Critic, often uses a scimitar instead of a quill, though a smile always tempers the severity. She thus beheads a poetaster who tells the public that his “solemn song” is
“Attempt ambitious, with a ray of hope
To pierce the dark abysms of thought, to guide
Its dim ghosts o’er the towering crags of Doubt
Unto the land where Peace and Love abide,
Of flowers and streams, and sun and stars.”
“His ‘solemn song’ is certainly very solemn for a song with so cheerful a purpose. We have rarely read, indeed, a book with so large a proportion of unhappy words in it. Frozen shrouds, souls a-chill with agony, things wan and gray, icy demons, scourging willow-branches, snow-heaped mounds, black and freezing nights, cups of sorrow drained to the lees, etc., are presented in such profusion that to struggle through the ‘dark abyss’ in search of the ‘ray of hope’ is much like taking a cup of poison to learn the sweetness of its antidote. Mr. –- in one of his stanzas invites his soul to ‘come and walk abroad’ with him. If he ever found it possible to walk abroad without his soul, the fact would have been worth chronicling; but if it is true that he only desires to have his soul with him occasionally, we should advise him to walk abroad alone, and invite his soul to sit beside him in the hours he devotes to composition.”
Then humor is displayed in the excellent parodies by women—as Grace Greenwood’s imitations of various authors, written in her young days, but quite equal to the “Echo Club” of Bayard Taylor. How perfect her mimicry of Mrs. Sigourney!
A FRAGMENT.
BY L.H.S.
How hardly doth the cold and careless world
Requite the toil divine of genius-souls,
Their wasting cares and agonizing throes!
I had a friend, a sweet and precious friend,
One passing rich in all the strange and rare,
And fearful gifts of song.
On one great work,
A poem in twelve cantos, she had toiled
From early girlhood, e’en till she became
An olden maid.
Worn with intensest thought,
She sunk at last, just at the “finis” sunk!
And closed her eyes forever! The soul-gem
Had fretted through its casket!
As I stood
Beside her tomb, I made a solemn vow
To take in charge that poor, lone orphan work,
And edit it!
My publisher I sought,
A learned man and good. He took the work,
Read here and there a line, then laid it down,
And said, “It would not pay.” I slowly turned,
And went my way with troubled brow, “but more
In sorrow than in anger.”
Phoebe Cary’s parody on “Maud Muller” I never fancied; it seems almost wicked to burlesque anything so perfect. But so many parodies have been made on Kingsley’s “Three Fishers” that now I can enjoy a really good one, like this from Miss Lilian Whiting, of the Boston Daily Traveller, the well-known correspondent of various Western papers:
THE THREE POETS.
After Kingsley.
BY LILIAN WHITING.
Three poets went sailing down Boston streets,
All into the East as the sun went down,
Each felt that the editor loved him best
And would welcome spring poetry in Boston town.
For poets must write tho’ the editors frown,
Their aesthetic natures will not be put down,
While the harbor bar is moaning!
Three editors climbed to the highest tower
That they could find in all Boston town,
And they planned to conceal themselves, hour after hour,
Till the sun or the poets had both gone down.
For Spring poets must write, though the editors rage,
The artistic spirit must thus be engaged—
Though the editors all were groaning.
Three corpses lay out on the Back Bay sand,
Just after the first spring sun went down,
And the Press sat down to a banquet grand,
In honor of poets no more in the town.
For poets will write while editors sleep,
Though they’ve nothing to earn and no one to keep;
And the harbor bar keeps moaning.
The humor of women is constantly seen in their poems for children, such as “The Dead Doll,” by Margaret Vandergrift, and the “Motherless Turkeys,” by Marian Douglas. Here are some less known:
BEDTIME.
BY NELLIE K. KELLOGG.
‘Twas sunset-time, when grandma called
To lively little Fred:
“Come, dearie, put your toys away,
It’s time to go to bed.”
But Fred demurred. “He wasn’t tired,
He didn’t think ‘twas right
That he should go so early, when
Some folks sat up all night.”
Then grandma said, in pleading tone,
“The little chickens go
To bed at sunset ev’ry night,
All summer long, you know.”
Then Freddie laughed, and turned to her
His eyes of roguish blue,
“Oh, yes, I know,” he said; “but then,
Old hen goes with them, too.”
—_Good Cheer_.
THE ROBIN AND THE CHICKEN.
BY GRACE F. COOLIDGE.
A plump little robin flew down from a tree,
To hunt for a worm, which he happened to see;
A frisky young chicken came scampering by,
And gazed at the robin with wondering eye.
Said the chick, “What a queer-looking chicken is that!
Its wings are so long and its body so fat!”
While the robin remarked, loud enough to be heard:
“Dear me! an exceedingly strange-looking bird!”
“Can you sing?” robin asked, and the chicken said “No;”