Wongan Way/The Farmer's Daughter
The Farmer's Daughter
Guess I'll stick to washing dishes,
Sweeping, cooking, darning socks;
Having literary wishes
Gives a girl too many shocks.
I think thoughts just like those bookmen;
Dream sweet dreams from morn to night.
I see folks just like their spook-men
In the evening's ghostly light.
I'd have loved a life of learning.
But whene'er I go about
With fires of genius burning,
Then the kitchen fire goes out.
“Look here. Sis, we’re two great ninnies”—
Thus my brother yesterday—
“Working hard when golden guineas
Here are fairly flung away.
“Prize for lyric, prize for sonnet,
Prize for humorous verses, too—
Seize a paper, scribble on it—
Suit for me and dress for you
“Come, let’s try it—I say, Mary,
What’s a lyric, anyhow?”—
So I got the dictionary,
And forgot to milk the cow.
—“Sonnets must be made to order;
Fourteen lines, and put just so,
Like in your embroidery border,
Or a picture-frame, you know.
“Where’s the ‘Royal Road to Rhyming’?
Lyrics must lie musical—
Ebbing, flowing, singing, chiming,
With a gentle rise and fall.”
So we scribbled till the dark it
Closed around, and day was gone;
Mother home again from market!
Dinner wasn’t even on!
Father swore a score of sonnets
Several miles of lyric, too—
Guess I’ll earn my frocks and bonnets
Just as other daughters do.