Ride to the Lady, and Other Poems — The Spring Beauties

THE SPRING BEAUTIES

The Puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church;

A Thrush, white-breasted, o'er them sat singing on his perch.

"Happy be!

for fair are ye!"

the gentle singer told them, But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them.

"Vanity, oh, vanity!

Young maids, beware of vanity!"

Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee, Half parson-like, half soldierly.

The sweet-faced maidens trembled, with pretty, pinky blushes, Convinced that it was wicked to listen to the Thrushes;

And when, that shady afternoon, I chanced that way to pass, They hung their little bonnets down and looked into the grass, All because the buff-coat Bee Lectured them so solemnly:-- "Vanity, oh, vanity!

Young maids, beware of vanity!"

KINSHIP