Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THEN AND NOW, by GUY WETMORE CARRYL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THEN AND NOW, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When first we met she was three feet high
Last Line: When she wanted a kiss at the age of three!
Subject(s): Love


WHEN first we met she was three feet high,
And three, I think, was her age as well,
A touch of the heaven was in her eye;
I cannot say she was very shy,
(As you'll see by her actions by and by),
But the way I behaved I blush to tell.

We met at a party, on the stair;
She was decked in ribbons and silk galore,
She smiled with a most bewitching air,
And then, I'm afraid, I pulled her hair.
You know you can't expect savoir-faire
Of a cavalier of the age of four!

She only laughed with her subtle charm,
And took it more sweetly than you'd have believed,
But later she really took alarm --
When she wanted to kiss me I pinched her arm,
And she ran away to escape from harm;
At which, no doubt, I was much relieved.

She did not offer to kiss again;
I saw her go off with another beau,
She pretended to hold up her ten-inch train,
And whispered low to her new-found swain.
I was eating ice-cream with might and main, --
And that was some seventeen years ago.

I see her to-night on the winding stair,
She replies with a smile to my sober bow;
The palms lean lovingly toward her hair,
And her foot keeps time to a distant air.
I'm afriad she does not recall or care --
She does not offer to kiss me now!

Heigho! What a sad, what a sweet affair,
What a curious mixture life seems to be!
I am fast in the net of love, and there,
With another man on the winding stair,
Is the girl I love, -- and I pulled her hair
When she wanted a kiss at the age of three!





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