I’m not pulling this out as typical or best representative of what she wrote or what 18th and 19th century women wrote, but the poem did make me smile. How sweet to worry about the well-being of the squirrel.
Warning, it’s a cliffhanger, no followup poem. It had me from the opening line..
LINES
On a favourite Squirrel. Written in the School Vacation.
AH , my Scuggy, is it drooping?–
By thy hoarded store I tell;
By thy little nuts unscoopen,
Much I fear, thou art not well.Scuggy–Scuggy; peep, my Scuggy,
Let me see thy glist’ning eye
Beam, whilst nuzzling in thy ruggy;–
Do not let thy mistress cry.Wake, my Scuggy, bound to meet me;
Steal my sugar from my cup;
With thy lively anticks treat me;
Seek the milk, and lap it up.On the teaboard take thy station,
Near the little china vase;
Nibble there thy morning’s ration,
With thy pretty slender paws.Sit erect in all thy beauty,
Furl aloft thy feather’d tail;
This has been the first half of an ode to a squirrel, written by Esther Milnes Day published post-humously in a collection in 1796.
It is available through British Women Romantic Poets, 1789-1832: Links to Works, all digitally archived in html 2 centuries later. UWO has electronica resources of early Canadian long poems.