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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
176
Weave
me
a
shroud
in
the
month
of
June!
I
was,
perhaps,
healthier
than
the
average
girl,
and
had
no
predisposition
to
a
premature
decline;
and
in
reviewing
these
absurdities
of
my
pen,
I
feel
like
saying
to
any
young
girl
who
inclines
to
rhyme,
"Don't
sentimentalize!
Write
more
of
what
you
see
than
of
what
you
feel,
and
let
your
feelings
realize
themselves
to
others
in
the
shape
of
worthy
actions.
Then
they
will
be
natural,
and
will
furnish
you
with
something
worth
writing."
It
is
fair
to
myself
to
explain,
however,
that
many
of
these
verses
of
mine
were
written
chiefly
as
exercises
in
rhythmic
expression.
I
remember
this
distinctly
about
one
of
my
poems
with
a
terrible
title,--"The
Murderer's
Request,"--in
which
I
made
an
imaginary
criminal
pose
for
me,
telling
where
he
would
not
and
where
he
would
like
to
be
buried.
I
modeled
my
verses,--
"Bury
ye
me
on
some
storm-rifted
mountain,
O'erhanging
the
depths
of
a
yawning
abyss,"--
upon
Byron's,
"Know
ye
the
land
where
the
cypress
and
myrtle
Are
emblems
of
deeds
that
are
done
in
their
clime;"
and
I
was
only
trying
to
see
how
near
I
could
approach
to
his
exquisite
metre.
I
do
not
think
I
felt
at
all
murderous
in
writing
it;
but
a
more
innocent
subject
would
have
been
in
better
taste,
and
would
have
met
the
exigencies
of
the
dactyl
quite
as
well.
It
is
also
only
fair
to
myself
to
say
that
my
rhyming
was
usually
of
a
more
wholesome
kind.
I
loved
Nature
as
I
knew
her,--in
our
stern,
blustering,
stimulating
New
England,--and
I
chanted
the
praises
of
Winter,
of
snow-storms,
and
of
March
winds
(I
always
took
pride
in
my
birth
month,
March),
with
hearty
delight.
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