Page 18 - Poetry-Family

What Is Home Without a Bridget?

‘Tis the source of all vexations,
All the trials and vexations.
When the evening shadows find me
Weary head and weary hearted,
With the running hither, thither;
With the vain and ceaseless running;
When the stoves are heated iron,
And the water bubbling, boiling,
Makes the steam, that longs to burn me;
Makes the vapory steam, that burns me.
When the master, in the morning,
Looks with questioning eyes upon me,
As he ushers from his chamber,
From his quiet leisure dressing,
With the cooling zephyrs blowing
In upon him from the terrace.
Looks with wond’ring eye upon me,
At my face, so brightly scarlet;
At my apron, with the signet
Which the stove has left upon it.
When the good man at the table
Talks of homes, the past, and present;
And my patient, best endeavor
Wakes the ghost of “mother’s cooking,”
Till my temper’s nicer ruffled
Than my apron from the laundry.
Once I dreamed it lesser Eden,
And we two the Eve and Adam;
But the glamour and the romance
Long have vanished, and I fear me
Wifely eyes will yet discover
This is home without a Bridget.

— Sue Murdock (Godey’s, 1874)

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