Page:My Friend Annabel Lee (1903).pdf/206

 "Or else one should contemplate the being of a sweet maid whose life is a fair, round, rose garden, and the thorns safely hidden and the stems pruned, and all. And one should likewise follow her step by step to her grave, or, if one so fancies, to the culmination of all happiness and success.

"For the idea is that in all one's contemplation, when one is a goose-girl, one should contemplate anything and everything except the being and condition of a goose-girl.

"But a better idea still," said my friend Annabel Lee, "would be to not contemplate at all, you know, but eat the radishes and other things, under the yew-tree, and rejoice.

"At any rate," said my friend Annabel Lee, "we need not contemplate now—what with these two little fishes and these green, crisp leaves."