NOTHIN' to say, my daughter! Nothin' at all to say! Gyrls that's in love, I've noticed, giner'ly has their way! Yer mother did, afore you, when her folks objected to me -- Yit here I am and here you air! and yer mother -- where is she? You look lots like yer mother: purty much same in size; And about the same complected; and favor about the eyes: Like her, too, about livin' here, because @3she@1 couldn't stay; It'll 'most seem like you was dead like her! -- but I hain't got nothin' to say! She left you her little Bible -- writ yer name acrost the page -- And left her ear-bobs fer you, ef ever you come of age; I've alluz kep' 'em and gyuarded 'em, but ef yer goin' away -- Nothin' to say, my daughter! Nothin' at all to say! You don't rickollect her, I reckon? No: you wasn't a year old then! And now yer -- how old @3air@1 you? W'y, child, not @3"twenty"!@1 When? And yer nex' birthday's in Aprile? and you want to git married that day? I wisht yer mother was livin'! -- but I hain't got nothin' to say! Twenty year! and as good a gyrl as parent ever found! There's a straw ketched on to yer dress there -- I'll bresh it off -- turn round. (Her mother was jes' twenty when us two run away.) Nothin' to say, my daughter! Nothin' at all to say! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE TWELVE-FORTY-FIVE (FOR EDWARD J. WHEELER) by ALFRED JOYCE KILMER TWENTY GOLDEN YEARS AGO by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN THE STORK by GHALIB IBN RIBAH AL-HAJJAM THE BANISHED LOVER by ABD AL-RAHMAN AL-MUSTAZHIR FACING AN HOUR-GLASS by ELFRIDA DE RENNE BARROW FORTUNATUS NIMIUM by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES LAMENT FOR JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN by ROBERT BURNS OBSERVATIONS IN THE ART OF ENGLISH POESY: 5. TROCHAIC VERSE: THE FIRST EPIGRAM by THOMAS CAMPION |