To a Good Girl

Like some chaste maenad whom the storm cannot seduce
You sweep into my frugal room.
Relentless steel is in your powerful stride; bright, loose
Spun gold, wind-swept, your hair. No doom

Can quite confuse your insolent young strength; the hue
Of softest rose upon your damask cheek
Belies no whit the pitiless and level blue
With which you meet my gaze. You reek

Of goodness, definite and hard; efficiency;
Determined, fixed, and sealed you know
The pale of right; and wrong you know you'll never
know. I see
You nail your colors to the mast! You throw

Away your scabbard! Wrong but stirs your glorious
young wrath!
I pray no weak nor inefficient thing may cross your
glowing path!

^__Margaret E. Haughawout.

Sheep's Clothing
Margaret E. Haughawout
Page 44
(Pittsburg, Kansas: __. 1929)