And her artless voice lent music to the least melodious lines;
Though she lowered her shadowing lashes, in an earnest reader’s wise,
Yet we caught blue gracious glimpses of the heavens that were her eyes.
As in Paradise I listened. Ah, I did not understand
That a little cloud, no larger than the average human hand,
Might, as stated oft in fiction, spread into a sable pall,
When she said that she should study elocution in the fall.
I admit her earliest efforts were not in the Ercles vein:
She began with “Lit-tle Maaybel, with her faayce against the paayne,
And the beacon-light a-trrremble—” which, although it made me wince,