Page 70 - Poetry-Romance

Grace After Meat

I will not tell you where she lived; too much
Already has been said; it would be spiteful.
Many unkind remarks are made by such
As live in places far, far less delightful.
Be this enough; it may be plainly stated
Her mind was very highly cultivated.
He was a stranger from a western wild,
And he knew naught of clubs that study Browning.
At first he thought her charming when she smiled,
And then he thought her so when she was frowning.
She studied him with care, as representative,
And his advances, for a while, were tentative.

He misinterpreted the pretty blush
Which dyed her cheek sometimes when he was speaking;
And so it was that after a small hush,
One day, he told her he her love was seeking.
The blush was caused, not by her heart’s wild clamor,
But by some obvious lapses in his grammar.
She looked distressed, perplexed, uncertain; then
She gently said, “You honor me too greatly;
It might have been”—she sighed, and sighed again—
“But for the sorrow you have caused me lately
By showing,”—here a natural hesitation
Ensued,—“excuse me, lack of cultivation.

“Should I accept the offer of your heart
‘T would be my painful duty, without shrinking,
To take your commonest remarks apart;
To make you see that even in your thinking
Although I do believe you mathematical—
You are not, and have never been, grammatical.
“I could not do this thing to one I loved,
And, should I do it, you would cease to love me.
Forget me, then; you can; it has been proved;
No argument, my friend, can change or move me.
Farewell. I say it in its widest senses.
Distract your mind by studying moods and tenses.”

~ 68 ~