Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Descriptive Poems: II. Nature and Art

Cousin Lucrece

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908)

HERE where the curfew

Still, they say, rings,

Time rested long ago,

Folding his wings;

Here, on old Norwich’s

Out-along road,

Cousin Lucretia

Had her abode.

Norridge, not Nor-wich

(See Mother Goose),

Good enough English

For a song’s use.

Side and roof shingled,

All of a piece,

Here was the cottage

Of Cousin Lucrece.

Living forlornly

On nothing a year,

How she took comfort

Does not appear;

How kept her body,

On what they gave,

Out of the poor-house,

Out of the grave.

Highly connected?

Straight as the Nile

Down from “the Gard’ners”

Of Gardiner’s Isle;

(Three bugles, chevron gules,

Hand upon sword),

Great-great-granddaughter

Of the third lord.

Bent almost double,

Deaf as a witch,

Gout her chief trouble—

Just as if rich;

Vain of her ancestry,

Mouth all agrin,

Nose half-way meeting her

Sky-pointed chin.

Ducking her forehead-top,

Wrinkled and bare,

With a colonial

Furbelowed air

Greeting her next of kin,

Nephew and niece,—

Foolish old, prating old

Cousin Lucrece.

Once every year she had

All she could eat:

Turkey and cranberries,

Pudding and sweet;

Every Thanksgiving,

Up to the great

House of her kinsman, was

Driven in state.

Oh, what a sight to see

Rigged in her best!

Wearing the famous gown

Drawn from her chest,—

Worn, ere King George’s reign

Here chanced to cease,

Once by a forbear

Of Cousin Lucrece.

Damask brocaded,

Cut very low;

Short sleeves and finger-mitts

Fit for a show;

Palsied neck shaking her

Rust-yellow curls

Rattling its roundabout

String of mock pearls.

Over her noddle,

Draggled and stark,

Two ostrich feathers—

Brought from the ark.

Shoes of frayed satin,

All heel and toe,

On her poor crippled feet

Hobbled below.

My! how the Justice’s

Sons and their wives

Laughed; while the little folk

Ran for their lives,

Asking if beldames

Out of the past,

Old fairy godmothers,

Always could last?

No! One Thanksgiving,

Bitterly cold,

After they took her home

(Ever so old),

In her great chair she sank,

There to find peace;

Died in her ancient dress—

Poor old Lucrece.