Classic Poem

They say she flirts; sore news that she
Should flirt at all and not with me.
Sam Rogers—so the tale expands—
Has gone for good to foreign lands,
And left her free to go and live
In whichsoever State will give
Release from matrimonial gyves
With least display of jarring lives.
The trouble? Oh, some say Sam beat her.
But others claim that what's the matter
Is that he didn't. Some, again,
Hear rumors about “other men,”
And add, explaining all that's hid—
“She flirts; you know she always did.”
Flirt! Well, perhaps she did, and yet
It seems too bad that Sam should let
Such coquetry as hers advance
To such calamitous mischance.
Her smiles on mankind to confer
Come just as natural to her
As to the sun in shining mood
To warm the evil and the good.
Are there not flowers that bloom and blush,
Sweet-scented, on a thorny bush,
Whose nature 'tis, not thinking wrong,
To every bee that comes along
To give some honey? But for these
'Twould be short commons for the bees.
And other splendid blooms there are,
Gorgeous to gaze on from afar,
But scentless; ravishing to see,
But without sweets to tempt a bee.
Getting a rose, Sam should have grown
Sharp thorns enough to keep his own,
Leaving the world some usufruct
Of sweetness from his rose unplucked.

Or else, if it were his desire
That everybody should admire,
But none appreciate his prize,
Save by the tribute of their eyes,
'Twere better if he had become
The stalk of a chrysanthemum,
That needs no thorns and safely grows,
Without alluring bee or nose.
Poor Sam! What thorns he had the power
To grow, have pierced his own sweet flower,
Till, of that gracious bloom bereft,
His thorns are all that he has left.

Oh, bootless conquest, to be bold
And win a maid one cannot hold!
Oh, wrack to her, and woe and pain,
To be once won, then lost again!
Oh, sharp aforesaid pang, to see
Her flirt at all, and not with me!
One cure for all, and only one—
To get the whole black snarl undone—
To call Odysseus back once more,
Shoo all the suitors from the door,
And trim the thorns of misplaced score,
And spray the rose with hellebore,
And gag the gossips who'd deplore,
Or carp at what had gone before!
Ah, those were services that would
Befit a friend, if one but could.
To stand compassioning her plight
Avails no jot to set her right.
Yet far more pleased were I to see
Her flirt no more, than e'en with me.