Winifred Waters sat and sighed <br />Under a weeping willow; <br />When she went to bed she cried, <br />Wetting all the pillow; <br /> <br />Kept on crying night and day, <br />Till her friends lost patience; <br />"What shall we do to stop her, pray?" <br />So said her relations. <br /> <br />Send her to the sandy plains, <br />In the zone called torrid: <br />Send her where it never rains, <br />Where the heat is horrid. <br /> <br />Mind that she has only flour <br />For her daily feeding; <br />Let her have a page an hour <br />Of the driest reading,-- <br /> <br />Navigation, logarithm, <br />All that kind of knowledge,-- <br />Ancient pedigrees go with 'em, <br />From the Heralds' College. <br /> <br />When the poor girl has endured <br />Six months of this drying, <br />Winifred will come back cured, <br />Let us hope, of crying. <br /> <br />Then she will not day by day <br />Make those mournful faces, <br />And we shall not have to say, <br />"Wring her pillow-cases."<br /><br />William Brighty Rands<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/little-ditties-i/
