A Woman's History, by W.H.Davies

A WOMAN’S HISTORY

by 

W H Davies

When Mary Price was five years old

And had a bird that died 

She laid its body under flowers;

And called her friends to pray to God,

And sing sad hymns for hours

When she before her fifteenth year

Was ruined by a man,

The neighbours sought him out, and said-

‘You’ll come along and marry her

Or hang till you are dead’

When they had found the child he wronged

And playing with her doll

‘ I’ll come along with you’ said she -

‘But I’ll not marry anyone

Unless my doll’s with me’

With no more love’s heat in her than

The wax upon her arm;

With no more love-light in her eyes

Than in the glass eyes of her doll -

Nor wonder, nor surprise.

When Mary Price was thirty-five,

And he was lying dead,

She wept as if her heart would break:

But neighbours winked to see her tears

Fall on a lovers’s neck

Now Mary Price is seventy-five

And skinning eels alive:

She, active, strong, and full of breath

Has caught the cat that stole an eel,

And beaten it to death

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