Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold :: :: University of Virginia Library

O we all are enamoured of dear little “Doll”
With her merry blue eyes and long lashes,
And flashes
Of humour, if sometimes she screams like poor Poll,
And is fond of a babel
And upsets a table
Or temper, and does not think twice—
But she's nice;
Though you never saw tantrums like hers out of fable
And not without vice;
She is always unstable,
But then she's a woman and never was ice.

Tiny “Doll” will go souse into any mad mess,
For she lives in a racket and flutter
And utter
Contempt of such trifles as customs and dress;
And her course is not humble
Like sinners, who stumble
And bother with penitent pains;
And her stains
Come more kindly to her, from too many a tumble
In pestilent drains,
At which good people grumble
And leave—till the next dirty scandal complains.

Daring “Doll” is a brick in the moment of need,
She is Irish and fond of a shindy
And windy
Herself, in her ways and her Donnibrooke creed;
In the stormiest weather,
And light as a feather
She flies when the stones are about—
She steps out,
And her tongue does away with propriety's tether;
She despises a clout
Of rude stick or rough leather,
Like a petrel she rides on the hubbub and rout.

519

Tricksy “Doll” is a darling, a great human love
On her pale pretty cheeks paints its flushes
And rushes
To eye and red lip, aud enwraps like a glove—
Yes, as warmly and tightly,
Whether wrongly or rightly,
When you once touch her sensitive part—
She has heart;
And that love in her sordid career burns more brightly
Than candles of art,
Like a star that beams nightly
On litter and leavings of mud and of mart.