 | New poems by Madison Cawein |  |
THE CABBAGE
Here is a tale for any one who wishes:There grew a cabbage once among the flowers,
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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.
| New poems by Madison Cawein | |