Classic Poem

W INIFRED Waters sat and sighed
Under a weeping willow;
When she went to bed she cried,
Wetting all her pillow;

Kept on crying night and day,
Till her friends lost patience;
‘What shall we do to stop her, pray?’
So said her relations.

Send her to the sandy plains
In the zone called torrid.
Send her where it never rains,
Where the heat is horrid.

Mind that she has only flour
For her daily feeding;
Let her have a page an hour
Of the driest reading—

Navigation, logarithm,
All that kind of knowledge—
Ancient pedigrees go with 'em
From the Herald's College.

When the poor girl has endured
Six months of this drying,
Winifred will come back cured,
Let us hope, of crying.