Page 53 - Poetry-Romance

Girton Girl

“Why, sir, should you seem so startled
When you chance to come on me
Talking silly baby-language
To the child upon my knee—
To this happy, crowing urchin,
While his peasant mother stands
Watching us, while she is wiping
Thick-flaked soapsuds from her hands?

“When you met me first, at dinner,
At the Hall the other night,
You were seated on my left hand,
The professor on my right;
And you saw I cared to listen—
Saw it with a scornful mirth—
To the facts that he was telling
Of the strata of the earth.

“And again, when of the Iliad
My companion chanced to speak,
You were less pleased than astounded
That I quoted Homer’s Greek.
And beneath my half-closed eyelids
I observed your covert smile,
When our hostess spoke of Ruskin,
And I answered with Carlyle.

“Then you thought you read me fully—
Woman in her latest phase,
Following with feebler footsteps
In far-reaching manhood’s ways.
A half-taught, conceited creature,
Something neither wise nor good ;
Losing for a vain chimera
All the grace of womanhood.

“ ‘Failing in her mad endeavour,
Though in every languid vein
Love-warmed heart-blood she replaces

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