In Middlemarch true love emerges
Amidst stilted, traditional ways.
Force and custom get their dirges
when freedom and will are set ablaze.

Dorothea, pure of heart,
Gave up a legacy
For she could not stay alive apart
From the spirit she did see

In Will. Will’s will, his mind, his manner
Captured Dorothea’s soul.
They were separated by social clamor
Several times until their lips got whole.

Happily, ever after lived almost the whole damned lot of them
sometimes closer to the flower of life—sometimes closer to the stem.