The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire (1842) - Gredos ...

The Salamanca Corpus: The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire (1842)
(For Jane forgets that she is now grown old).
I knew when I liv’d servant at Woodmile,
So scorching hot the weather was in April,
The cows would startle, and by ten o’clock
My master us’d his horses to unyoke;
‘Tis not so now; the sun has lost its power;
The very apples now-a-days are sour!
Could not the Parson tell the reason why
There are such changes both in earth and sky?”
“‘Tis not these only,” Margaret replied,
“For many a change besides have I espied.
Look at the girls!—they all dress now-a-days
Like them fine folk who act them nonsense plays!
[11]
No more the decent mob surrounds the face,
Border’d with edging, or bit good bone-lace;
Gauze flappets soon—that will not last a day—
We’ll see them flaunting whilst they’re making hay!
All things are chang’d, the world’s turned upside down,
And every servant wears a cotton gown,
Bit flimsy things, that have no strength to wear,
And will like any blotting-paper tear!
I made my Nelly a half-worsted gown,
She slighting told me ‘t would not do in town!
I This pride! this pride! it sure must have a fall,
I And bring some heavy judgment on us all!
They’re grown so bold too, and their lads allow,
When courting them, to skulk behind a cow,
Till all’s in bed. My John, when courting me,
Us’d after supper to come manfully;
For oft he us’d to say he knew no place
Where honesty need fear to shew its face.
No more it need! My master us’d to cry,—
He fear’d but two things—to turn thief, and lie.”
The leading crow her colony brings home,
And two by two they seek their leafy dome.
Of all the branches that invite to rest,
Each loves the one that hangs above its nest;
What though of rudest architecture made,
Nor thorns surrounding nor with clay inlaid,
Yet ‘tis the spot where infant days began,
That thus attaches both the crow and man!