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Muse and Mint

Chapter 19: SWEET ’STEEN
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About This Book

A varied collection of short lyrical poems that observes nature and rural life, using seasonal imagery—sap, snow, rivers, cherries—and simple domestic scenes to reflect on change, beauty, and small joys. Sections shift between fireside recollections, sentimental and philosophical meditations, homiletic and religious pieces, and light humor, blending devotional songlike verses with moral aphorisms and affectionate memory. The voice moves between wistful and buoyant moods, finding consolation and ethical insight in commonplace experiences, while concise stanzas and vivid images emphasize mood and moral reflection rather than a continuous narrative.

SWEET ’STEEN

Little outgrown pinafore
Hanging there behind the door,
Seldom seen,
Sprigged all over full of buds
Like the yesterdays whose suds
Only partly washed you out—
What d’you mean
By reviving such a time
Like a phantom put to rout
Till it runs to rue and rhyme?
Ah, ’tis sad to think of it—
Missy that you used to fit
Till between
Top and bottom was a glance,
Now is wearing styles of France;
For alas, she’s grown to be
Sweet sixteen,
With young ladyship’s conceit
And its sprouting vanity—
Sixteen, pinafore, and sweet!