My Graduate Wife

Fair of form and fair of feature,

O, she is a dainty creature,

In complexion she can beat your

     Damsel from the Orient;

She can paint or make a statue,

With a ball club she can bat you,

She can ride a wheel straight at you,

     She can wrestle of invent.

She can pose a la Dianna,

She can thump her grand pianna,

In a fetching, Frenchy manner

     She can fence with you at once;

She can golf and she can paddle,

She can ride her horse astraddle,

She has often won a medal

     For her great athletic stunts.  

She is up to date on Plato,

She can bake a sweet potato,

She can draw a bow so straight O,

     It’s a bulls-eye fast and fair;

She can leap her horse o’er ditches,

She has eyes like any witch’s,

But she cannot sew two stitches

     On these pantaloons I wear.

Sept. 24, 1904

(a rewritten and expanded version of the same poem, originally written on Aug. 17, 1896 and published in the N.Y. World, June 20, 1897)