Heigh ho! well, the season's over!
Once again we've come to Lent!
Programme's changed from balls and parties---
Now we're ordered to repent.
Forty days of self-denial!
Tell you what, I think it pays---
Know't'l freshen my complexion
Going slow for forty days.
No more savoury French suppers---
Such as Madame R--- can give.
Well, I need a little thinning---
Just a trifle---sure's you live.
Sometimes been afraid my plumpness
Might grow into downright fat.
Rector urges need of fasting---
Think there's lot of truth in that.
We must meditate, he tells us,
On our several acts of sin,
And repent them. Let me see now---
Whereabouts shall I begin!
Flirting---yes, they say 'tis wicked;
Well, I'm awful penitent.
(Wonder if my handsome major
Goes to early Mass through Lent?)
Love of dress! I'm guilty there too---
Guess it's my besetting sin.
Still I'm somewhat like the lilies,
For I neither toil nor spin.
Forty days I'll wear my plainest---
Could repentance be more true?
What a saving on my dresses!
They'll make over just like new.
Pride, and worldliness and all that,
Rector bade us pray about
Every day through Lenten season,
And I mean to be devout!
Papa always talks retrenchment---
Lent is just the very thing.
Hope he'll get enough in pocket
So we'll move up town next spring.
Poetical works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox. by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Edinburgh : W. P. Nimmo, Hay, & Mitchell, 1917.
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