His Bit

Katharine Lee Bates 1859 (Falmouth) – 1929 (Wellesley)



GALLANTLY swung the old carpenter up to his door,
Drums and fifes in his tread,
But softly he crossed the braided mats on the floor,
Gently he stroked her head.
'More folks were there at the station than ever I knew,
Bidding the lad good-by.
Here's a daisy he picked at the platform's edge for you,
Kissing it on the sly.
'He'll do his part, our boy, on the fighting line';
— She caught the flower to her lips—
'And you with your knitting, and I have signed up for mine,
Work on the wooden ships.
'Oh, but it's hard to be old when the bugles call,
Yet I hav'n't lost my chance.
I'll be in the shipyard the day the first trees fall,
Before the boy's in France.'

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

41 sec read
119

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 657
Words 132
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 16

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem America the Beautiful Bates was born in Falmouth Massachusetts and lived as an adult on Centre Street in Newton Massachusetts An historic plaque marks the site of her home The daughter of a Congregational pastor she graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and for many years was a professor of English literature at Wellesley While teaching there she was elected a member of the newly formed Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences because of her interest in history and politics for which she also studied She lived at Wellesley with Katharine Coman who herself was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College Economics department The pair lived together for twenty-five years until Comans death in 1915 It is debated if this relationship was an intimate lesbian relationship as different sources maintain or a platonic relationship called sometimes Boston marriages as the local historical society of her birthplace maintain more…

All Katharine Lee Bates poems | Katharine Lee Bates Books

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