 | The Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey |  |
Long did I meditate—yea, often dream
By day and night, at school-time and at play,—
Alas! at holiest seasons, even at church
The vision haunted me,—of that rare thing,
And his surpassing happiness to whom
Fate should assign its fellow. Thereupon
Sprang up crude notions, vague incipient schemes
Of future independence: not like those
Fermenting in the youthful brain of her
Maternally, on fashionable system,
Trained up betimes i' the way that she should go
To the one great end—a good establishment.
Yet similar in some sort were our views
Toward contingent power. “When I'm a woman
I'll have,” quoth I,—so far the will and when
Tallied exactly, but our difference lay
Touching the end to be achieved. With me,
Not settlements, and pin-money, and spouse
Appendant, but in unencumbered right
Of womanhood—a house and cuckoo clock!
By day and night, at school-time and at play,—
Alas! at holiest seasons, even at church
The vision haunted me,—of that rare thing,
And his surpassing happiness to whom
Fate should assign its fellow. Thereupon
Sprang up crude notions, vague incipient schemes
Of future independence: not like those
Fermenting in the youthful brain of her
Maternally, on fashionable system,
Trained up betimes i' the way that she should go
To the one great end—a good establishment.
Yet similar in some sort were our views
Toward contingent power. “When I'm a woman
I'll have,” quoth I,—so far the will and when
Tallied exactly, but our difference lay
Touching the end to be achieved. With me,
Not settlements, and pin-money, and spouse
Appendant, but in unencumbered right
Of womanhood—a house and cuckoo clock!
| The Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey | |