Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MAUD MULLER A-WHEEL, by SAMUEL ELLSWORTH KISER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MAUD MULLER A-WHEEL, by                    
First Line: Maud muller, on a summer's day
Last Line: Be not allowed to block the way!
Subject(s): Automobiles; Driving & Drivers; Household Employees; Social Classes; Wheels; Cars; Servants; Domestics; Maids; Caste


MAUD MULLER, on a summer's day,
Mounted her wheel and rode away.

Beneath her blue cap glowed a wealth
Of large red freckles and first-rate health.

Single she rode, and her merry glee
Frightened the sparrow from his tree.

But when she was several miles from town
Upon a hill-slope, coasting down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a sort of terror filled her breast —

A fear that she hardly dared to own;
For what if her wheel should strike a stone!

The Judge scorched swiftly down the road —
Just then she heard his tire explode!

He carried his wheel into the shade
Of the apple tree to await the maid.

And he asked her if she would kindly loan
Her pump to him, as he had lost his own.

She left her wheel with a sprightly jump
And in less than a jiffy produced the pump.

And she blushed as she gave it, looking down
At her feet, once hid by a trailing gown.

Then said the Judge as he pumped away,
"'T is very fine weather we're having to-day."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of twenty-mile rides and centuries;

And Maud forgot that no trailing gown
Was over her bloomers hanging down.

But the tire was fixed, alack-a-day!
The Judge remounted and rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed, "Ah me!"
That I the Judge's bride might be!

"My father should have a brand new wheel
Of the costliest make and the finest steel.

"And I'd give one to ma of the same design
So that she'd cease to borrow mine."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill
And saw Maud Muller standing still.

"A prettier face and a form more fair
I've seldom gazed at, I declare!

"Would she were mine and I to-day
Could make her put those bloomers away!"

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And shuddered to think how they would scold

If he should, one of these afternoons,
Come home with a bride in pantaloons!

He married a wife of the richest dower,
Who had never succumbed to the bloomers' power;

Yet oft, while watching the smoke wreaths curl,
He thought of that freckled bloomer girl;

Of the way she stood there pigeon-toed,
While he was pumping beside the road.

She married a man who clerked in a store.
And many children played round her door.

And then her bloomers brought her joy!
She cut them down for her oldest boy.

But still of the Judge she often thought,
And sighed o'er the loss her bloomers wrought.

Or wondered if wearing them was a sin,
And then confessed: "It might have been."

Alas for the Judge! Alas for the Maid!
Dreams were their only stock in trade.

For of all wise words of tongue or pen,
The wisest are these: "Leave pants to men."

Ah, well! For us all hope still remains,
For the bloomer girl and the man of brains.

And, in the hereafter, bloomers may
Be not allowed to block the way!





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