Jenny and I

We rise before the lark, And keep working till dark, And by striving to do right we are fearless of the wrong; We never scold and fret, And we never go in debt, And that’s the way my Jenny and I get along.

Nor lodge nor servants’ hall Give us any care at all, No lady’s maid or coachman have we to find or lose; And with Jenny on my knee, And no prying eyes to see, We can say what we wish to say, and do what we choose.

You might think our little house Just a shelter for a mouse, And counting each treasure, I am free to declare That a “real India shawl” Would have cost the price of all, Yet I and my Jenny have enough and to spare.

From the trembling tongues of trees, Through the prairie’s grassy seas, In the green, growing cornfields, and beside the rainy brooks; In the flowery springtide-prime, And the Indian summer time, We have always sweeter poems than poets write in books.

When banks are breaking down, And disaster like a frown Weighs hard, in the city, on the low and the high, We have still our cribs and mows, Our oxen, sheep, and cows, And so we calmly sleep o’ nights, my Jenny and I.