The Modest Maid

I am a modest San Francisco maid,
Fresh, fair, and young,
Such as the painters gladly have displayed,
The poets sung.

Modest?—Oh, modest as a bud unblown,
A thought unspoken;
Hidden and cherished, unbeheld, unknown,
In peace unbroken.

Far from the holy shades of this my home,
The coarse world raves,
And the New Woman cries to heaven’s dome
For what she craves.

Loud, vulgar, public, screaming from the stage,
Her skirt divided,
Riding cross-saddled on the dying age,
Justly derided.

I blush for her, I blush for our sweet sex
By her disgraced.
My sphere is home. My soul I do not vex
With zeal misplaced.

Come then to me with happy heart, O man!
I wait your visit.
To guide your footsteps I do all I can,
Am most explicit.

As veined flower-petals teach the passing bee
The way to honey,
So printer’s ink displayed instructeth thee
Where lies my money.

Go see! In type and cut across the page,
Before the nation,
There you may read about my eyes, my age,
My education,

My fluffy golden hair, my tiny feet,
My pet ambition,
My well-developed figure, and my sweet,
Retiring disposition.

All, all is there, and now I coyly wait.
Pray don’t delay.
My address does the Blue Book plainly state,
And mamma’s “day.”

San Francisco, 1895.