| |
| SHE was, indeed, a pretty little creature, | |
| So meek, so modest: what a pity, madam, | |
| That one so young and innocent, should fall | |
| A prey to the ravenous wolf. | |
| ——— The wolf, indeed! | 5 |
| You ’ve left the nursery to but little purpose, | |
| If you believe a wolf could ever speak, | |
| Though, in the time of Æsop, or before. | |
| —Was ’t not a wolf, then? I have read the story | |
| A hundred times; and heard it told: nay, told it | 10 |
| Myself, to my younger sisters, when we ’ve shrank | |
| Together in the sheets, from very terror, | |
| And, with protecting arms, each round the other, | |
| E’en sobb’d ourselves to sleep. But I remember, | |
| I saw the story acted on the stage, | 15 |
| Last winter in the city, I and my school-mates, | |
| With our most kind preceptress Mrs Bazely, | |
| And so it was a robber, not a wolf | |
| That met poor little Riding Hood i’ the wood? | |
| —Nor wolf nor robber, child: this nursery tale | 20 |
| Contains a hidden moral. | |
| ——— Hidden: nay, | |
| I ’m not so young, but I can spell it out, | |
| And thus it is: children, when sent on errands, | |
| Must never stop by the way to talk with wolves. | 25 |
| —Tut! wolves again: wilt listen to me, child? | |
| —Say on, dear grandma. | |
| ——— Thus then, dear my daughter: | |
| In this young person, culling idle flowers, | |
| You see the peril that attends the maiden | 30 |
| Who, in her walk through life, yields to temptation, | |
| And quits the onward path to stray aside, | |
| Allured by gaudy weeds. | |
| ——— Nay, none but children, | |
| Could gather butter-cups and May-weed, mother. | 35 |
| But violets, dear violets—methinks | |
| I could live ever on a bank of violets, | |
| Or die most happy there. | |
| ——— You die, indeed, | |
| At your years die! | 40 |
| ——— Then sleep, ma’am, if you please, | |
| As you did yesterday in that sweet spot | |
| Down by the fountain; where you seated you | |
| To read the last new novel—what d’ye call’t— | |
| The Prairie, was it not? | 45 |
| ——— It was, my love, | |
| And there, as I remember, your kind arm | |
| Pillow’d my aged head: ’t was irksome sure, | |
| To your young limbs and spirit. | |
| ——— No, believe me, | 50 |
| To keep the insects from disturbing you | |
| Was sweet employment, or to fan your cheek | |
| When the breeze lull’d. | |
| ——— You’re a dear child! | |
| ——— And then, | 55 |
| To gaze on such a scene! the grassy bank, | |
| So gently sloping to the rivulet, | |
| All purple with my own dear violet, | |
| And sprinkled o’er with spring flowers of each tint. | |
| There was that pale and humble little blossom, | 60 |
| Looking so like its namesake Innocence; | |
| The fairy-form’d, flesh-hued anemone, | |
| With its fair sisters, call’d by country people | |
| Fair maids o’ the spring. The lowly cinquefoil too, | |
| And statelier marigold. The violet sorrel | 65 |
| Blushing so rosy red in bashfulness, | |
| And her companion of the season, dress’d | |
| In varied pink. The partridge ever-green, | |
| Hanging its fragrant wax-work on each stem, | |
| And studding the green sod with scarlet berries— | 70 |
| —Did you see all those flowers? I mark’d them not. | |
| —O many more, whose names I have not learn’d. | |
| And then to see the light blue butterfly | |
| Roaming about, like an enchanted thing, | |
| From flower to flower, and the bright honey-bee— | 75 |
| And there too was the fountain, overhung | |
| With bush and tree, draped by the graceful vine, | |
| Where the white blossoms of the dogwood, met | |
| The crimson red-bud, and the sweet birds sang | |
| Their madrigals; while the fresh springing waters, | 80 |
| Just stirring the green fern that bathed within them, | |
| Leapt joyful o’er their fairy mound of rock, | |
| And fell in music—then pass’d prattling on, | |
| Between the flowery banks that bent to kiss them. | |
| ——— I dream’d not of these sights or sounds. | 85 |
| ——— Then just | |
| Beyond the brook there lay a narrow strip, | |
| Like a rich riband, of enamel’d meadow, | |
| Girt by a pretty precipice, whose top | |
| Was crown’d with rose-bay. Half-way down there stood | 90 |
| Sylph-like, the light fantastic columbine | |
| As ready to leap down unto her lover | |
| Harlequin Bartsia, in his painted vest | |
| Of green and crimson. | |
| ——— Tut! enough, enough, | 95 |
| Your madcap fancy runs too riot, girl. | |
| We must shut up your books of Botany, | |
| And give you graver studies. | |
| ——— Will you shut | |
| The book of nature, too?—for it is that | 100 |
| I love and study. Do not take me back | |
| To the cold, heartless city, with its forms | |
| And dull routine; its artificial manners | |
| And arbitrary rules; its cheerless pleasures | |
| And mirthless masquing. Yet a little longer | 105 |
| O let me hold communion here with nature. | |
| —Well, well, we ’ll see. But we neglect our lecture | |
| Upon this picture— | |
| ——— Poor Red Riding Hood! | |
| We had forgotten her; yet mark, dear madam, | 110 |
| How patiently the poor thing waits our leisure. | |
| And now the hidden moral. | |
| ——— Thus it is: | |
| Mere children read such stories literally, | |
| But the more elderly and wise, deduce | 115 |
| A moral from the fiction. In a word, | |
| The wolf that you must guard against is—LOVE. | |
| —I thought love was an infant; “toujours enfant.” | |
| —The world and love were young together, child, | |
| And innocent—alas! time changes all things. | 120 |
| —True, I remember, love is now a man. | |
| And, the song says, “a very saucy one”— | |
| But how a wolf? | |
| ——— In ravenous appetite, | |
| Unpitying and unsparing, passion is oft | 125 |
| A beast of prey. As the wolf to the lamb, | |
| Is he to innocence. | |
| ——— I shall remember, | |
| For now I see the moral. Trust me, madam, | |
| Should I e’er meet this wolf-love in my way, | 130 |
| Be he a boy or man, I ’ll take good heed, | |
| And hold no converse with him. | |
| ——— You ’ll do wisely. | |
| —Nor e’er in field or forest, plain or pathway, | |
| Shall he from me know whither I am going, | 135 |
| Or whisper that he ’ll meet me. | |
| ——— That ’s my child. | |
| —Nor, in my grandam’s cottage, nor elsewhere, | |
| Will I e’er lift the latch for him myself, | |
| Or bid him pull the bobbin. | 140 |
| ——— Well, my dear, | |
| You ’ve learn’d your lesson. | |
| ——— Yet one thing, my mother, | |
| Somewhat perplexes me. | |
| ——— Say what, my love, | 145 |
| I will explain. | |
| ——— This wolf, the story goes, | |
| Deceived poor grandam first, and ate her up: | |
| What is the moral here? Have all our grandmas | |
| Been first devour’d by love? | 150 |
| ——— Let us go in; | |
| The air grows cool—you are a forward chit. | |
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