A Young Lady’s Soliloqy

Uselessly, aimless’y drifting through life.
What was I born for? “For Somebody’s wife,”
I am told by my mother. Well, that being true.
“Somebody” keeps himself strangely from view;
And if naught but marriage will settle may fate,
I believe I shall die in an unsettled state.
For tho’ I am not ugly – pray, what woman is? –
You might easily find a more beautiful phiz;
And then, as for temper and manners, ‘tis plain
He who seeks for perfection will seek here in vain.
Nay, in spite of these drawbacks, my heart is perverse.
And I sho’d not feel grateful for better or worse.
To take the first booby that graciously came
And offered those treasures, his home and his name.
I think, then, my chances of marriage are small,
But why should I think of such chances at all?
My brothers are all of them younger than I.
Yet they thrive in the world, why not let me try?
I know that in business I’m not an adept.
Because from such matters most strictly I’m kept.
But – this is the question that puzzles my mind –
Why am I not trained up to work of some kind?
Uselessly, aimlessly, drifting through life,
Why should I wait to be “Somebody’s wife?”

- Published in The Union Sentinel, Osceola, Iowa, January 9, 1864