| |
| I ’M sitting alone by the fire, | |
| Dressed just as I came from the dance, | |
| In a robe even you would admire,— | |
| It cost a cool thousand in France; | |
| I ’m bediamonded out of all reason, | 5 |
| My hair is done up in a cue: | |
| In short, sir, “the belle of the season” | |
| Is wasting an hour on you. | |
| |
| A dozen engagements I ’ve broken; | |
| I left in the midst of a set; | 10 |
| Likewise a proposal, half spoken, | |
| That waits—on the stairs—for me yet. | |
| They say he ’ll be rich,—when he grows up,— | |
| And then he adores me indeed. | |
| And you, sir, are turning your nose up, | 15 |
| Three thousand miles off, as you read. | |
| |
| “And how do I like my position?” | |
| “And what do I think of New York?” | |
| “And now, in my higher ambition, | |
| With whom do I waltz, flirt, or talk?” | 20 |
| “And isn’t it nice to have riches | |
| And diamonds and silks and all that?” | |
| “And aren’t it a change to the ditches | |
| And tunnels of Poverty Flat?” | |
| |
| Well, yes,—if you saw us out driving | 25 |
| Each day in the park, four-in-hand; | |
| If you saw poor dear mamma contriving | |
| To look supernaturally grand,— | |
| If you saw papa’s picture, as taken | |
| By Brady, and tinted at that, | 30 |
| You ’d never suspect he sold bacon | |
| And flour at Poverty Flat. | |
| |
| And yet, just this moment, when sitting | |
| In the glare of the grand chandelier, | |
| In the bustle and glitter befitting | 35 |
| The “finest soirée of the year,” | |
| In the mists of a gaze de chambéry | |
| And the hum of the smallest of talk,— | |
| Somehow, Joe, I thought of “The Ferry,” | |
| And the dance that we had on “The Fork;” | 40 |
| |
| Of Harrison’s barn, with its muster | |
| Of flags festooned over the wall; | |
| Of the candles that shed their soft lustre | |
| And tallow on head dress and shawl; | |
| Of the steps that we took to one fiddle; | 45 |
| Of the dress of my queer vis-à-vis; | |
| And how I once went down the middle | |
| With the man that shot Sandy McGee; | |
| |
| Of the moon that was quietly sleeping | |
| On the hill, when the time came to go; | 50 |
| Of the few baby peaks that were peeping | |
| From under their bedclothes of snow; | |
| Of that ride,—that to me was the rarest; | |
| Of—the something you said at the gate: | |
| Ah, Joe, then I wasn’t an heiress | 55 |
| To “the best-paying lead in the State.” | |
| |
| Well, well, it ’s all past; yet it ’s funny | |
| To think, as I stood in the glare | |
| Of fashion and beauty and money, | |
| That I should be thinking, right there, | 60 |
| Of some one who breasted high water, | |
| And swam the North Fork, and all that, | |
| Just to dance with old Folinsbee’s daughter, | |
| The Lily of Poverty Flat. | |
| |
| But goodness! what nonsense I ’m writing! | 65 |
| (Mamma says my taste still is low,) | |
| Instead of my triumphs reciting, | |
| I ’m spooning on Joseph,—heigh-ho! | |
| And I ’m to be “finished” by travel, | |
| Whatever ’s the meaning of that,— | 70 |
| O, why did papa strike pay gravel | |
| In drifting on Poverty Flat? | |
| |
| Good-night,—here ’s the end of my paper; | |
| Good-night,—if the longitude please,— | |
| For maybe, while wasting my taper, | 75 |
| Your sun ’s climbing over the trees. | |
| But know, if you haven’t got riches, | |
| And are poor, dearest Joe, and all that, | |
| That my heart ’s somewhere there in the ditches, | |
| And you ’ve struck it,—on Poverty Flat. | 80 |
| |
