WHEN meeting-bells began to toll, And pious folk began to pass, She deftly tied her bonnet on, The little, sober meeting lass, All in her neat, white-curtained room, before her tiny looking-glass. So nicely, round her lady-cheeks, She smoothed her hands of glossy hair, And innocently wondered if Her bonnet did not make her fair— Then sternly chid her foolish heart for harboring such fancies there. So square she tied the satin strings, And set the bows beneath her chin; Then smiled to see how sweet she looked; Then thought her vanity a sin, And she must put such thoughts away before the sermon should begin. But, sitting 'neath the preachèd Word, Demurely in her father's pew, She thought about her bonnet still,— Yes, all the parson's sermon through,— About its pretty bows and buds which better than the text she knew. Yet sitting there with peaceful face, The reflex of her simple soul, She looked to be a very saint— And maybe was one, on the whole— Only that her pretty bonnet kept away the aureole. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...I'VE NEVER SEEN SUCH A REAL HARD TIME BEFORE' by HAYDEN CARRUTH CONTRA MORTEM: THE NOTHING II by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE MEASURE OF THE YEAR by JAMES GALVIN THE POET'S TESTAMENT by GEORGE SANTAYANA THE DADDY STRAIN by KAREN SWENSON |