Just for fun
Today, February 1, is the feast day of St. Bridgid of Kildare. In honor of that, here is Phyllis McGinley's delightful poem about the very generous saint
The Giveaway
from The Love Letters of Phyllis McGinley
Saint Brigid was
A problem child.
Although a lass
Demure and mild,
And one who strove
To please her dad,
Saint Brigid drove
The family mad.
For here's the fault in Brigid lay:
She WOULD give everything away.
To any soul
Whose luck was out
She'd give her bowl
Of stirabout;
She'd give her shawl,
Divide her purse
With one or all.
And what was worse,
When she ran out of things to give
She'd borrow from a relative.
Her father's gold,
Her grandsire's dinner,
She'd hand to cold
and hungry sinner;
Give wine, give meat,
No matter whose;
Take from her feet
The very shoes,
And when her shoes had gone to others,
Fetch forth her sister's and her mother's.
She could not quit.
She had to share;
Gave bit by bit
The silverware,
The barnyard geese,
The parlor rug,
Her little
niece's christening mug,
Even her bed to those in want,
And then the mattress of her aunt.
An easy touch
For poor and lowly,
She gave so much
And grew so holy
That when she died
Of years and fame,
The countryside
Put on her name,
And still the Isles of Erin fidget
With generous girls named Bride or Brigid.
Well, one must love her.
Nonetheless,
In thinking of her
Givingness,
There's no denial
She must have been
A sort of trial
Unto her kin.
The moral, too, seems rather quaint.
WHO had the patience of a saint,
From evidence presented here?
Saint Brigid? Or her near and dear?
Tags
- interesting people (19)
- food (9)
- Italy (6)
- recipe (4)
- recipes (4)
- poem (3)
- Regency (3)
- travel (3)
- writing (3)
- archaeology (2)
- Assyria (2)
- characters (2)
- historical romance (2)
- Lady Emily's Exotic Journey (2)
- Layard (2)
- theater (2)
- Victorian Adventurers (2)
- 18th century (1)
- Anglesey (1)
- artificial leg (1)
- Augustus Hare (1)
- Basil Zaharoff (1)
- Beresford (1)
- Brougham (1)
- Cannes (1)
- Charles Worth (1)
- childhood (1)
- City of London (1)
- clocks (1)
- comte de Lavalette (1)
- Constantinople (1)
- Etruscans (1)
- fashion (1)
- Ferdinand I (1)
- Florence (1)
- flowers (1)
- France (1)
- George Stephenson (1)
- Henry Paget (1)
- history (1)
- Isle of Jersey (1)
- Jane Austen (1)
- Lady Elinor's Wicked Adventures (1)
- Lorenzo de' Medici (1)
- Louisa Stuart (1)
- lyon (1)
- Maria Tree (1)
- marriage (1)
- Martineau (1)
- memories (1)
- Mesopotamia (1)
- music (1)
- Naples (1)
- Nineveh (1)
- Orient Express (1)
- ottoman empire (1)
- packet ships (1)
- people (1)
- personal (1)
- Potts (1)
- Renaissance (1)
- Renaissance Italy (1)
- research (1)
- Restoration (1)
- Rome (1)
- ships (1)
- soup (1)
- story prompts (1)
- the Magnificent (1)
- Victorian (1)
- Waterford (1)
- Waterloo (1)
- White Terror (1)
- William Banting (1)
- WIP (1)
- Yezidis (1)
Archives
- November 2021 (1)
- September 2021 (1)
- July 2021 (1)
- February 2021 (3)
- January 2021 (1)
- December 2020 (1)
- October 2020 (1)
- August 2019 (1)
- September 2018 (1)
- March 2018 (1)
Comments
Post new comment