Well, when it was over, so sweet was her face That she seemed as if dressed in velvet and lace; And she made that wonderful bow once more, Till her rather scant petticoat touched the floor. We clapped our hands, and we made them smart, And we were happy around the heart, For the way that the teachers crowded in Added a lot to the lovely din. Poor Miss McHugh was pleased till she cried, While the 2-A-2 just swelled with pride; And so excited was Miss McHugh That she didn’t know just the thing to do. But she kissed our beauty of Soap Suds Row, Till Margaret’s face was all aglow; She mentioned that Marge was a human lute-- She was glad that her bread was bearing fruit. Then the principal said in his stately way That for 1-3-9 ’twas a very proud day, And that close alignment to classroom rules Made genius flourish in public schools. But somehow the girls in the 2-A-2, They get things just a bit askew; And they surmise that Mistress Snow Found most of her genius in Soap Suds Row. EVA Eva, the first of the fair ones, Taught all her daughters to paint; Using indelible colors, Seeress and siren and saint. Banished them all to the brook brims, There in benign ambuscade, Taught them the art of portraying Beauty that never may fade. Voiced she the values of the shadows Moored to the moss-mantled crags; Primed them to pose by the dwarf palms And mid the cat-tails and flags. Thus by each crevice and cavern, Thus in the lunettes and glades, There are depicted all damsels, Eva’s most wonderful maids. Traceries tender and dimpled, Intricate art of design; Shadowy ideals of Eden, Even of Eva, divine. Breathe but a name in the bowers, Pour out her praise as a prayer; Forth from the fronds floats a presence, Vestured in loveliness rare. Thus, since the first of the fair ones, All of the daughters of Eve, Portray in permanent colors, Making men see and believe. OLD MAID’S REVERIE I’m tired of mirthless mirrors and their hostile heresies, Of musing in a mansion hung with mildewed memories; Of the silence of the stairways, of the statuary wan, Of the alabaster angel riding on the fountain swan; I’m irked by isolation and the lawns kept so and so-- I’d trade an old maid’s theories for a rood of Soap Suds Row; For the sunflowers and the shanties where the shadows sit at ease, For the horde of baby banshees and the swing-scarred apple-trees; Therefore methinks I’ll venture to a disarrayed domain, And shoonless dance the saraband in some assuaging lane. No sandals wrought in Sybaris, or girdle bossed with gold, But beauty in a barefoot mood, revising edicts old. There cupids turn the calendars to Michael Angelo, The goya needs no gabardine, the rose no kimono;