New poems by Madison Cawein :: :: University of Virginia Library

THE CABBAGE

Here is a tale for any one who wishes:
There grew a cabbage once among the flowers,

238

A plain, broad cabbage—a good wench, whose hours
Were kitchen-busy with plebeian dishes.
The rose and lily, toilless, without mottle,
Patricians born, despised her:—“How unpleasant!”
They cried; “What odour!—Worse than any peasant
Who soils God's air! Give us our smelling-bottle.”
There came a gentleman who owned the garden,
Looking about him at both flower and edible,
Admiring here and there; a simple sinner,
Who sought some bud to be his heart's sweet warden:
But passed the flowers and took—it seems incredible!—
That cabbage!—But a man must have his dinner.