Ah! beauteous was she, that white-satin young bride,
But sorrow had reddened her deep purple eyes.
Each clatter of hoofs from the courtyard below
Did summon the blood swift to ebb and then flow;
For the gem on her finger, the flower in her hair,
Bound not her sad heart to that Cleveland man there.
Ah! who is this riding so fast through Main Street?
The gallant young lover--
Again, reiterant and increasingly imperative, summons from the house
slashed across her mood. Can't one's family ever appreciate the
yearning for solitude? However, even amid the talkative circle round
the supper-table, Missy felt uplifted and strangely remote.
"Why aren't you eating your supper, Missy? Just look at that wasted
good meat!"
"Meat," though a good rhyme for "street,' would not work well.
"Neat"--"fleet"--Ah! "Fleet!"
Immediately after supper, followed by the inquisitive Poppylinda,
Missy took her poem out to the comparative solitude of the back
porch steps. It was very sweet and still out there, the sun sinking
blood-red over the cherry trees. With no difficulty at all, she went
on, inspired:
--Main Street?
The gallant young Doctor in his motor so fleet!
So flashing his eye and so stately his form
That the bride's sinking heart with delight did grow warm.
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