On your soft hair a helmet placed, Fastened your breastplate like a bib on, And tied the Truth about your waist Where she is proud to tie your ribbon.
Each has her task, decorous, sweet, Fair, to surpass your friends, she made you, While for your hidden foes’ defeat I in your Pauline arms arrayed you.
For, though you tire of sash and gown And fold them up for good, there’s no day When these, that I have made your own, Shall be a burden or démodés.
Yet, though the clasps endure, I know I’ll wish our handiwork were neater When at celestial gates you show The well-worn harness to St. Peter.
THE BABY GOAT
Four alders guard a bridge of planks And waveless waters filmed with brown, A rugged lawn’s uneven banks Slope gently down, And there, still chafing at the chain That girds his slim pathetic throat, They’ve picketed our friend again— The Baby Goat.
Treading alone the watered vale, Betsey and I, beside the marsh Often we linger to bewail His durance harsh; What plaints allure my baby’s feet, What tethered struggles claim her sighs, What shrill protestant whinnies greet Her long good-byes.
Once we repassed the lonely ground Below the alders where he feeds And spied his stunted horns girt round With flow’ring weeds, Two merry wenches and a child Caressed his grey ill-fitting coat And, lolling in the sedge, beguiled The Baby Goat.
Now, for long days companionless, His soft blunt nose, his agate eyes, His raised remonstrant brows express The sad surprise Wherewith the desolate green waste O’erloads his heart who at the edge Of stagnant waters kneels to taste The thankless sedge.