DOLLIE RADFORD 1858-1920

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A NOVICE

What is it, in these latter days, 

Transfigures my domestic ways, 

And round me, as a halo, plays? 

My cigarette. 

For me so daintily prepared, 

No modern skill, or perfume, spared, 

What would have happened had I dared 

To pass it yet? 

What else could lighten times of woe, 

When some one says 'I told you so,' 

When all the servants, in a row, 

Give notices? 

When the great family affairs 

Demand the most gigantic cares, 

And one is very ill upstairs, 

With poultices? 

What else could ease my aching head, 

When, though I long to be in bed, 

I settle steadily instead 

To my 'accounts?' 

And while the house is slumbering, 

Go over them like anything, 

And find them ever varying, 

In their amounts! 

Ah yes, the cook may spoil the broth, 

The cream of life resolve to froth, 

I cannot now, though very wroth, 

Distracted be; 

For as the smoke curls blue and thin 

From my own lips, I first begin 

To bathe my tired spirit in 

Philosophy. 

And sweetest healing on her pours, 

Once more into the world she soars, 

And sees it full of open doors, 

And helping hands. 

In spite of those who, knocking, stay 

At sullen portals day by day, 

And weary at the long delay 

To their demands. 

The promised epoch, like a star, 

Shines very bright and very far, 

But nothing shall its lustre mar, 

Though distant yet. 

If I, in vain, must sit and wait, 

To realize our future state, 

I shall not be disconsolate, 

My cigarette!

Caroline Maitland was an English poet who, using her married name, wrote as Dollie Radford. Her friends included Eleanor Marx the youngest daughter of Karl Marx.

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