The Periwinkle Girl
I’VE often thought that headstrong youthsOf decent education,Determine all-important truths,With strange precipitation.
The ever-ready victims they,Of logical illusions,And in a self-assertive wayThey jump at strange conclusions.
Now take my case: Ere sorrow couldMy ample forehead wrinkle,I had determined that I shouldNot care to be a winkle.
“A winkle,” I would oft advanceWith readiness provoking,“Can seldom flirt, and never dance,Or soothe his mind by smoking.”
In short, I spurned the shelly joy,And spoke with strange decision—Men pointed to me as a boyWho held them in derision.
But I was young—too young, by far—Or I had been more wary,I knew not then that winkles areThe stock-in-trade of MARY.
I had not watched her sunlight blitheAs o’er their shells it dances—I’ve seen those winkles almost writheBeneath her beaming glances.
Of slighting all the winkly broodI surely had been chary,If I had known they formed the foodAnd stock-in-trade of MARY.
Both high and low and great and smallFell prostrate at her tootsies,They all were noblemen, and allHad balances at COUTTS’S.
Dukes with the lovely maiden dealt,DUKE BAILEY and DUKE HUMPHY,Who ate her winkles till they feltExceedingly uncomfy.
DUKE BAILEY greatest wealth computes,And sticks, they say, at no-thing,He wears a pair of golden bootsAnd silver underclothing.
DUKE HUMPHY, as I understand,Though mentally acuter,His boots are only silver, andHis underclothing pewter.
A third adorer had the girl,A man of lowly station—A miserable grov’ling EarlBesought her approbation.
This humble cad she did refuseWith much contempt and loathing,He wore a pair of leather shoesAnd cambric underclothing!
“Ha! ha!” she cried. “Upon my word!Well, really—come, I never!Oh, go along, it’s too absurd!My goodness! Did you ever?
“Two Dukes would Mary make a bride,And from her foes defend her”—“Well, not exactly that,” they cried,“We offer guilty splendour.
“We do not offer marriage rite,So please dismiss the notion!”“Oh dear,” said she, “that alters quiteThe state of my emotion.”
The Earl he up and says, says he,“Dismiss them to their orgies,For I am game to marry theeQuite reg’lar at St. George’s.”
(He’d had, it happily befell,A decent education,His views would have befitted wellA far superior station.)
His sterling worth had worked a cure,She never heard him grumble;She saw his soul was good and pure,Although his rank was humble.
Her views of earldoms and their lot,All underwent expansion—Come, Virtue in an earldom’s cot!Go, Vice in ducal mansion!