Page 62 - Poetry-Romance

True to Brother Spear

I can’t decide why Brother Spear
Was never joined to me;
It wasn’t because the good old Dear
Hadn’t every chance to be;
If poetry remarked one time
That Womanhood is true,
It’s more than probable that I’m
The one it had in view;
For, search the city low and high,
And no one will you hear
To say or hint but what that I
Was true to Brother Spear.

I mothered all his daughters when
Their mother’s life cut short,
Although they didn’t—now or then—
So much as thank me for’t;
I laughed—though scorched with inside rage—
And said I didn’t care
When his young son, of spank’ble age,
Removed my surplus hair;
I called and called and called there; why
He ne’er was in seemed queer;
The house-maid even owned that I
Was true to Brother Spear.

I hired a sitting in the church
Near him, but cornerwise,
So his emotions I could search
With my devoted eyes;
And when the sermon used to play
On love, divine and free,
I nodded him, as if to say,
“He’s hitting you and me!”
He went and took another pew—
Of “thousand tongues” in fear;
But what sin was it to be true
To good old Brother Spear?

~ 60 ~