Read "The Gossips" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A rose in my garden, the sweetest and fairest, / Was hanging her head through the long golden hours; / And early one morning I saw her tears falling, / And heard a low gossiping talk in the bowers. / The yellow Nasturtium, a spinster all faded, / Was telling a Lily what ailed the poor Rose: / "That wild roving Bee who was hanging about her, / Has jilted her squarely, as every one knows.
"I knew when he came, with his singing and sighing, / His airs and his speeches so fine and so sweet, / Just how it would end; but no one would believe me, / For all were quite ready to fall at his feet. " / "Indeed, you are wrong," said the Lily-belle proudly, / "I cared nothing for him; he called on me once, / And would have come often, no doubt, if I'd asked him, / But though he was handsome, I thought him a dunce."