QUITE CONTRARY.
"Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And tulips, all of a row."
Prithee, tell me, Mistress Mary,
Whence this rhyme of "quite contrary"?
Why should Mother Goose, beholding
All these pleasant blooms unfolding,—
Every prim and pretty border
Standing in such shining order,—
Looking o'er the lovely rows,
Ask you "how your garden grows"?
Mary, so precise and chary,
Are you, anyhow, contrary?
While these sweetly perfect lines
Nod their gentle countersigns,
Spending all your strength on this,
Lest the least thing grow amiss,
Weareth some unseen parterre
Quite a different kind of air?
Through your hating of a weed
Runs there any ill to seed,—
Thistle-blow of petulance,
Bitter blade of blame, perchance,
Or a flaunting stem of pride,
In that other garden-side?
Mary, in our women-hearts
Spring such curious counterparts!
Each her home-plot watching wary,
Lest the faultless order vary
By the dropping of a leaf,
Or a blossom come to grief
From the blasting of the storm,
Or the eating of a worm,
Let us both be certain, Mary,
Nothing dearer goes contrary!