Where, seated in a study bistre-brown,
She tried to pierce a mystery as clear
As that I saw once puzzling a young clown—
“Reading Made Easy,” but turned upside down.
Yet Ellen, like most Misses in the land,
Had sipped sky blue, through certain of her teens,
At one of those establishments which stand
In highways, byeways, squares, and village greens;
’Twas called “The Grove,”—a name that always means
Two poplars stand like sentries at the gate—