Vainly, as becomes
a candid country lass, blue-eyed Susan tells him that she is but a poor
dairymaid. He has been a student of women at Courts, in which furnace the
sex becomes a transparency, so he recounts to her the catalogue of
material advantages he has to offer. Finally, after his assurances that
she is to be married by the parson, really by the parson, and a real
parson--
Sweet Susie is off for her parents' consent,
And long must the old folk debate what it meant.
She left them the eve of that happy May morn,
To shine like the blossom that hangs from the thorn!
Apart from its historical value, the ballad is an example to poets of our
day, who fly to mythological Greece, or a fanciful and morbid
mediaevalism, or--save the mark!--abstract ideas, for themes of song, of
what may be done to make our English life poetically interesting, if they
would but pluck the treasures presented them by the wayside; and Nature
being now as then the passport to popularity, they have themselves to
thank for their little hold on the heart of the people.
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