Swooning over a very pretty number in Palgrave's Golden Treasury, I Googled it, to find to my chagrin it was supposedly pure fiction. [I think not, but.] Ergo, I began, but since mine are never fiction, this is neither. Begun in dialect, that effect deteriorates midway since the initial drive did likewise.


(sonnet #MMMMMMMMXLIX)


Say Jenny, she ne'er married aught, and whence?
Fine fellows came a' courting. She'd avail
Hersel' of mair than ane or twa, 'cept he *** fail
To tie the knot and she *** feign frae thence
Twas a' fer guid, as if thar was defense.
But thar was nane.  Or p'raps thar was. Detail
How minny girls ha' suffered in the frail
Hope of a happy life, and she's spared hence.
The man who played her fer a fool in tour
She blindly loved, as minny wimin do,
He courting others 'neath her nose in puir
Reply, then telling her long after. Who
Kin blame puir Jenny she ne'er married? Stir
Her sisters now to envy or tears too?

20.May24b/31.Oct.24
Note: a stab at writing for art's sake alone.