I read over piece after piece to cam my sperit, hurt and wownded by infringin', and my pardner's onsympathizin' words, and I picked out the follerin' one as bein' comparitively worthy a place in my great work.
This poem, writ before her marriage, I consider the most touchin'ly pathetic one of all the enormous pile on 'em I had perused. What to a feelin' mind and tender heart is more pitiful than to see a patridge hidin' his head under a maple leaf, and thinkin' his hull body is hid from the hunter? What is more affectin' than to see how Betsy tried to hide her lifelong pursuit of man, and matrimony, under the cold word, duty?
"Unless she see her duty plain."
Oh, what a soul of meanin' there is hid under that word, unless. A keen eye, and a tender heart can read between the lines her real meanin', her dantless resolve, as plain as the hunter sees the plump body and gray tail feathers of the patridge. But I will not keep the reader longer from the sad but beautiful poem.
STANZAS ON DUTY
By Betsy Bobbett
Unless they do their duty see
Oh who would spread their sail
On matrimony's cruel sea
And face its angry gale?
Oh Betsy Bobbett I'll remain unless I see my duty plain.
Shall horses calmly brook a halter
Who over fenceless pastures stray?
Shall females be dragged to the altar,
And down their freedom lay?
No, no, B. Bobbett I'll remain, unless I see my duty plain.
Beware! beware, oh rabid lover
Who pines for intellect and beauty,
My heart is ice to all your overtures
unless I see my duty,
For Betsy Bobbett I'll remain unless I see my duty plain.
Come not with keys of rank and splendor
My heart's cold portals to unlock,
'Tis vain to search for feelin's tender
Too late you'll find you've struck a rock;
For Betsy Bobbett I'll remain unless I see my duty plain.
'Tis vain for you to pine and languish,
I cannot soothe your bosom's pain,
In vain are all your groans, your blandishments
I warn you are in vain;
For Betsy Bobbett I'll remain unless I see my duty plain.
You needn't lay no underhanded
Plots to ketch me, men desist
Or in the dust you will be landed
For to the last I will resist.
For Betsy Bobbett I'll remain unless I see my duty plain.