modest summer dresses
MAUD Muller, on a summer season's day,
Raked the meadow candy with hay.
Below her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of easy elegance and rustic well being.
Making a song, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-fowl echoed from his tree.
But if she glanced to the far away city,
White from its hill-slope trying down,
The candy tune died, and a imprecise unrest
And a anonymous longing crammed her breast,
A want that she rarely dared to possess,
For whatever thing greater than she had recognized.
The Pass judgement on rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle within the colour
Of the apple-bushes to greet the maid,
And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
In the course of the meadow around the street.
She stooped in which the cool spring bubbled up,
And crammed for him her small tin cup,
And blushed as she gave it, searching down
On her ft so naked, and her tattered costume.
"Thank you!" reported the Choose; "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand became on no account quaffed."
He mentioned the grass and plants and bushes,
Of the making a song birds and the buzzing bees;
Then talked of the haying, and puzzled no matter if
The cloud within the west might carry foul climate.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn dress
And her sleek ankles naked and brown;
And listened, when a cheerful wonder
Seemed from her lengthy-lashed hazel eyes.
Eventually, like person who for postpone
Seeks a useless excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller appeared and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Pass judgement on's bride perhaps!
"He could costume me up in silks so first-class,
And reward and toast me at his wine.
"My father could put on a broadcloth coat;
My brother should always sail a painted boat.
"I would clothe my mom so grand and homosexual,
And the infant must have a brand new toy day to day.
"And that i'd feed the hungry and dress the terrible,
And all should always bless me who left our door."
The Pass judgement on appeared lower back as he climbed the hill,
And noticed Maud Muller status nonetheless.
"A kind extra honest, a face greater candy,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to satisfy.
"And her modest resolution and swish air
Demonstrate her smart and suitable as she is honest.
"May she had been mine, and that i to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay:
"No in doubt stability of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary attorneys with never-ending tongues,
"However low of livestock and tune of birds,
And wellbeing and fitness and quiet and loving phrases."
Yet he thought about his sisters proud and chilly,
And his mom useless of her rank and gold.
So, last his center, the Decide rode on,
And Maud became left inside the container on my own.
However the attorneys smiled that afternoon,
While he hummed in courtroom an antique love-song;
And the younger woman mused beside the neatly,
Until eventually the rain at the unraked clover fell.
He wedded a spouse of richest dower,
Who lived for vogue, as he for force.
But oft, in his marble fireside's vivid glow,
He watched an image come and cross;
And candy Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Appeared out of their blameless shock.
Oft, whilst the wine in his glass was once purple,
He longed for the wayside effectively as an alternative;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud guy sighed, with a mystery ache,
"Ah, that I have been loose returned!
"Unfastened as after i rode that day,
Wherein the barefoot maiden raked her hay."
She wedded a guy unlearned and bad,
And lots of youngsters performed around her door.
Yet care and sorrow, and childbirth affliction,
Left their lines on coronary heart and mind.
And oft, while the summer time solar shone warm
At the new-mown hay within the meadow lot,
And she or he heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, during the wall,
Within the coloration of the apple-tree returned
She observed a rider draw his rein.
And, observing down with timid grace,
She felt his completely satisfied eyes learn her face.
Often her slim kitchen partitions
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinet became,
The tallow candle an astral burned,
And for him who sat via the chimney lug,
Napping and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly type at her area she observed,
And pleasure used to be accountability and love become legislation. modest summer dresses
Then she took up her burden of existence lower back,
Pronouncing solely, "It may possibly had been."
Sadly for maiden, sadly for Choose,
For wealthy repiner and loved ones drudge!
God pity them the two! and pity us all,
Who vainly the goals of sweet sixteen consider.
For of all unhappy phrases of tongue or pen,
The saddest are those: "It could were!"
Ah, good! for us all a few candy wish lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, within the hereafter, angels would
Roll the stone from its grave away!
~J.G. Whittier .1856