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A Southern Girl -- Samuel Minturn Peck

       
(Poem #1884) A Southern Girl
 Her dimpled cheeks are pale;
 She's a lily of the vale,
       Not a rose.
 In a muslin or a lawn
 She is fairer than the dawn
       To her beaux.

 Her boots are slim and neat, --
 She is vain about her feet,
       It is said.
 She amputates her r's,
 But her eyes are like the stars
       Overhead.

 On a balcony at night,
 With a fleecy cloud of white
       Round her hair --
 Her grace, ah, who could paint?
 She would fascinate a saint,
       I declare.

 'Tis a matter of regret,
 She's a bit of a coquette,
       Whom I sing:
 On her cruel path she goes
 With a half a dozen beaux
       To her string.

 But let all that pass by,
 As her maiden moments fly,
       Dew-empearled;
 When she marries, on my life,
 She will make the dearest wife
       In the world.
-- Samuel Minturn Peck
Note: lawn: A light cotton or linen fabric of very fine weave.
  [Middle English laun, after Laon, a city of northern France.]

This is a delightfully lighthearted poem, one that kept me smiling
throughout at its sheer, brazen refusal to take either itself or its
subject seriously. Furthermore (apart from the wonderful "half a dozen beaux
to her string" pun, and the reference to "amputated" 'r's) the humour seems
to lie almost entirely in the tone of the poem - no mean feat, considering
how many works of this sort either slip into a more heavy-handed sort of
mockery, or go the more "explicit humour" route.

Note, also, the wonderfully lilting rhythm of the poem - something that drew
me in from the first verse, even before I noticed Peck's gentle humour.
Again, it takes an excellent ear and a very deft touch to keep the poem from
being annoyingly sing-song. All in all, it was just enjoyable to read a poem
clearly written for the sheer fun of writing poetry, but written nonetheless
with excellent attention paid to style and detail.

martin

Links:
  There is a brief biography here:
    [broken link] http://www.pddoc.com/poems/#peck

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