Classic Poem

She was born and bred a lady. Menial hands obeyed her bidding,
In her fine old home ancestral, grand from nature, fair from art:
There her will was never thwarted, her caprices never chidden;
For she was the only daughter of her father's “house and heart.”

She had suitors of distinction, men of genius, men of learning;
Some adored her peerless beauty, others loved her gold and land,
And a few, through all her waywardness, with critical discerning,
Saw a woman's full-orbed mind and heart, and therefor, sought her hand.

And they followed her with praises, but she listened to them coldly;
Thanked them for their gentle courtesy, or silenced them with scorn;
“One,” she said, “wooed far too tenderly—another far too boldly:
One was wedded to his sciences, and one was lowly born.”

But she thanked them for their preference with a charming grace and seeming;
Declared that never a thought of love her heart had stilled or stirred;
And beneath the lofty lindens still went singing, still went dreaming,
With unfettered fancy soaring like the free wing of a bird.

Oh, that careless, happy maiden, coming from the path of childhood,
With her feet all wet with dew-drops, and her heart all rich and rife
With the sunshine of the spring time, with the odors of the wildwood.
The sweet dreams she went dreaming are the poetry of life.