The Little Lady
James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)
O The Little Lady's dainty
As the picture in a book,
And her hands are creamy-whiter
Than the water-lilies look;
Her laugh's the undrown'd music
Of the maddest meadow-brook.--
Yet all in vain I praise The Little Lady!
Her eyes are blue and dewy
As the glimmering Summer-dawn,--
Her face is like the eglantine
Before the dew is gone;
And were that honied mouth of hers
A bee's to feast upon,
He'd be a bee bewildered, Little Lady!
Her brow makes light look sallow;
And the sunshine, I declare,
Is but a yellow jealousy
Awakened by her hair--
For O the dazzling glint of it
Nor sight nor soul can bear,--
So Love goes groping for The Little Lady.
And yet she's neither Nymph nor Fay,
Nor yet of Angelkind:--
She's but a racing school-girl, with
Her hair blown out behind
And tremblingly unbraided by
The fingers of the Wind,
As it wildly swoops upon The Little Lady.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 51 sec read
- 42 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABXBXBA ACXCXXA XDADXDA XAXEXEA |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 845 |
Words | 164 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7, 7, 7 |
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"The Little Lady" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/21074/the-little-lady>.
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