What Diantha Did by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The brooding bird fulfills her task, Or she-bear lean and brown; All parent beasts see duty true, All parent beasts their duty do, We are the only kind that asks For duty upside down.

The stiff-rayed windmill stood like a tall mechanical flower, turning slowly in the light afternoon wind; its faint regular metallic squeak pricked the dry silence wearingly. Rampant fuchsias, red-jewelled, heavy, ran up its framework, with crowding heliotrope and nasturtiums. Thick straggling roses hung over the kitchen windows, and a row of dusty eucalyptus trees rustled their stiff leaves, and gave an ineffectual shade to the house.