Life, 1898-07-07 · page 5 of 20
Life — July 7, 1898 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "A Milkmaid" - Life Magazine Satire This is a humorous poem by Carolyn Wells praising a milkmaid. The illustration shows an elaborately dressed woman in fashionable attire—far too ornate and refined for actual farm work—striking a theatrical pose. The satire appears to mock the romanticization of pastoral life by upper-class society. The poem's grandiose language ("Hail thee, O Milkmaid!") ironically elevates a working-class figure to goddess-like status, celebrating her for mundane tasks like milking cows and spring work. The visual joke reinforces this: the figure is clearly a sophisticated woman playing at being a milkmaid rather than an actual laborer. This likely satirizes contemporary literary or artistic trends that idealized rustic simplicity while actual farm work remained unglamorous and physically demanding.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HAIL thee, O Milkmaid! Goddess of the gaudy morn, Hail! Across the mead tripping, Invariably across the mead tripping, The merry mead with cowslips bloom- ing, With daisies blooming, The Milkmaid also more or less blooming! T hail thee, O Milkmaid! I recognize tho value of thy pail in literature and art, What were a pastoral poet without thee? Oh, I know thee, Milkmaid! T hail thy jaunty juvonescenco, I know thy eighteen summers and thy eternal springs, Ay, I know thy trials! I know how thou art outspread over pastoral poetry. Rampant, ubiquitous, inevitable, thy riotings in pastoral poetry. And in masterpieces of pastoral‘art! How oft have I seen theo sitting; On a tri-legged stol sitting; On the wrong side of the cow sitting; Garbed in all thy preposterous paraphernalia. I know thy paraphernalia— Yea, even thy impossible milkpailand thy improbable bodice. Sbort-skirted Siren! Big-hatted Beauty ! What wore tho gentle spring without thee? I hail thee! 1 hail thy vernality, and I rejoice in thy backneyed ‘ubiquitousness, T hail the superiority of thy inferiorness, and I lay at thy feet this garland of gratuitous Hailst Carolyn Wells, comicbooks.com