fflo | Postcard of the Day

"Message Week" here at Postcard of the Day is thanks to

amw. Thanks,

amw!

ETA: Lady Mary Jane apparently refers to a poem of one Nathalia Crane, with these lines:

"I linger on the flathouse roof, the moonlight is divine,
But my heart is all a-flutter like the washing on the line."

:D

But wait! There's more!

The whole poem:

THE FLATHOUSE ROOF 

I LINGER on the flathouse roof, the moonlight is divine. 
But my heart is all a-flutter like the washing on the line. 

I long to be a heroine, I long to be serene, 

But my feet, they dance in answer to a distant tambourine. 

And, oh! the dreams of ecstasy. Oh! Babylon and Troy. 
I've a hero in the basement, he's the janitor's red-haired boy. 

There's the music of his mallet and the jigging of his saw; 
I wonder what he's making on that lovely cellar floor? 

He loves me, for he said it when we met upon the stair, 
And that is why I'm on the roof to get a breath of air. 

He said it! Oh! He said it! And the only thing I said 
Was, "Roger Jones, I like you, for your hair is very red." 

We parted when intruders came a-tramping through the hall; 
He's got my pocket handkerchief and I have got his ball. 

And so it is I'm on the roof. Oh! Babylon and Troy! 
I'm very sure that I'm in love with someone else's boy. 

Alone, upon the starry heights, I'm dancing on a green, 
To the jingling and the jangling of a distant tambourine. 

To the stamping of a hammer and the jigging of a saw, 
And the secret sort of feeling I'm in love forever more. 

Do you think it's any wonder, with the moonlight so divine, 
That my heart is all a-flutter, like the washing on the line?

AND Nathalia was a child prodigy--- she was 10 when that poem came out. The full text of her book, Janitor's Boy,: and other poems, is available here.

(I like to think Lady Mary Jane was a-flutter over Mrs. Arnold back in Brooklyn, m'self.)