"Whenever you dress me dolls, mammy,
     Why do you dress them so,
And make them gallant soldiers,
     When never a one I know;
And not as gentle ladies
     With frills and frocks and curls
As people dress the dollies
     Of other little girls?"

Ah--why did she not answer:--
     "Because your mammy's heed
Is always gallant soldiers,
     As well may be, indeed.
One of them was your daddy,
     His name I must not tell;
He's not the dad who lives here,
     But one I love too well."

Critique

The rhyming pattern in this poem is fairly simple. Every other line rhymes. For example, lines two and four rhymes and lines six and eight rhyme. This poem also has a steady rhythym, allowing the first stanza to sound more childlike. This poem betrays a mother longing for a man she truly loves. As was more common in the nineteenth century than today, this woman probably married for wealth or social standing, though she loved another man. She has had an affair with a soldier and her daughter is not her husband's. This is eveident in lines five through seven of the second stanza. She says, "One of them was your daddy,/ His name I must not tell;/He's not the dad who lives here," If she admitted her infidelity, both she and her daughter would lose all of their social standing and financial security.
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