The Spring Beauties

The puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church; A Thrush, white-breasted, o’er them sat singing on his perch. “Happy be! for fair are ye!” the gentle singer told them, But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them.     “Vanity, oh, vanity!     Young maids, beware of vanity!”     Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee,     Half parson-like, half soldierly. The sweet-faced maidens trembled, with pretty, pinky blushes, Convinced that it was wicked to listen to the Thrushes; And when, that shady afternoon, I chanced that way to pass, They hung their little bonnets down and looked into the grass.     All because the buff-coat Bee     Lectured them so solemnly:—     “Vanity, oh, vanity!     Young maids, beware of vanity!”