My Jessie, from "Picture Poesies"
Not on view
Houghton's image represents a girl gleaning grain in a field. The print first appeared in "A Round of Days" (1866, see 65.629.1), engraved by the Dalziel Brothers and published by Routledge. It was here reissued in "Picture Poesies" (1874), and is one of two by the artist that illustrates a poem by Amelia B. Edwards; the other print shows a girl wading in the ocean (see 25.78.194).
My Jessie
My Jessie lives beyond the town,
Just where the moorland, bare and brown,
Looks over to the sea;
A little maid of lowly birth,
But, oh! of all the girls on earth,
The dearest girl to me!
Few Summers hath she know; her eyes
Are bluer than the Summer skies,
And brimming oe'r with fun;
Her hair is like a golden crown;
Her little hands are sadly brown;
Her cheek tells of the sun.
But could you see her come and go
In Summer shine and Winter snow,
As I do, day by day;
Now rising like the lark at morn;
Like Ruth, now gleaning in the corn;
Now busy in the hay;
Now racing like a greyhound fleet
Along the glist'nin sands, with feet
Like snow, so white and bare;
All beauty, health, enjoyment, mirth,
You'd say no queen on all the earth
Was ever half so fair!
