Margery
Christina Georgina Rossetti
What shall we do with Margery?
She lies and cries upon her bed,
All lily-pale from foot to head,
Her heart is sore as sore can be;
Poor guileless shamefaced Margery.
A foolish girl, to love a man
And let him know she loved him so!
She should have tried a different plan;
Have loved, but not have let him know:
Then he perhaps had loved her so.
What can we do with Margery
Who has no relish for her food?
We’d take her with us to the sea—
Across the sea—but where’s the good?
She’d fret alike on land and sea.
Yes, what the neighbours say is true:
Girls should not make themselves so cheap.
But now it’s done what can we do?
I hear her moaning in her sleep,
Moaning and sobbing in her sleep.
I think—and I’m of flesh and blood—
Were I that man for whom she cares
I would not cost her tears and prayers
To leave her just alone like mud,
Fretting her simple heart with cares.
A year ago she was a child,
Now she’s a woman in her grief;
The year’s now at the falling leaf,
At budding of the leaves she smiled;
Poor foolish harmless foolish child.
It was her own fault? so it was.
If every own fault found us out
Dogged us and snared us round about,
What comfort should we take because
Not half our due we thus wrung out?
At any rate the question stands;
What now to do with Margery,
A weak poor creature on our hands?
Something we must do: I’ll not see
Her blossom fade, sweet Margery.
Perhaps a change may after all
Prove best for her: to leave behind
Those home-sights seen time out of mind;
To get beyond the narrow wall
Of home, and learn home is not all.
Perhaps this way she may forget,
Not all at once, but in a while;
May come to wonder how she set
Her heart on this slight thing, and smile
At her own folly, in a while.
Yet this I say and I maintain:
Were I the man she’s fretting for
I should my very self abhor
If I could leave her to her pain,
Uncomforted to tears and pain.
