Edith Mirick

Of a Stout Lady

You will not look for beauty here
In this form, graceless and uncouth;
And yet the mountain of her flesh
Covers the frame-work of her youth.

Her not ill-natured eye which now
In cushions pendulous, is hid,
Is still the eye which sparkled once
From under an enticing lid.

Pity her who is but in fact
A grossly builded sepulchre;
Whose flesh is now a heavy shroud
To hold the buried youth of her.