CERELLE

By: Margaret Bell Houston; 1929

There was a score of likely girls

Around the prairie-side,

But I went down to Galveston

And brought me home a bride.

A score or more of handsome girls,

Of proper age and size,

But the pale girls of Galveston

Have sea-shine in their eyes.

As pale as any orange flower,

Cerelle.  The gold-white sands

Were like her hair, and drifting shells,

White fairy shells, her hands.

I think she liked my silver spurs

A-clinking in the sun

She’d never seen a cowboy till

I rode to Galveston.

She’d never known the chaparral,

Nor smell of saddle leather

Nor seen a round-up or a ranch,

Till we rode back—together.

Shall I forget my mother’s eyes?

“Is this the wife you need?

Is this the way you bring me rest

From forty men to feed?”

Cerelle—I think she did her best

All year.  She’d lots to learn.

Dishes would slip from out her hands

And break, the bread would burn.

And she would steal away at times

And wander off to me,

And when the wind was in the south

She’s say, “I smell the sea!”

She changed.  The white and gold grew dull,

As when a soft flame dies,

And yet she kept until the last

The sea-shine in her eyes.

There are (I make a husband’s boast)

No stronger arms than Ann’s

She has a quip for all the boys,

And sings among the pans.

At last my mother takes her rest,

And that’s how things should be,

But when the wind is in the south

There is no rest for me.