Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LIFE IS THUS, by WALT MASON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LIFE IS THUS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Never look behind
Last Line: Behind.
Subject(s): Children; Grief; Life; Parents; Poverty; Childhood; Sorrow; Sadness; Parenthood


THE parents rear a winsome maid, whose name, perhaps, is Rose, and feed her pies

and marmalade, and buy her furbelows. They educate her year by year, with
knowledge store her mind, although the learning graft is dear, and money hard to

find. They hope that when they're old and gray, the damsel will be near, to shoo

their dotard griefs away, and dry the misfit tear. "She'll surely be our rod and

staff," they say, "when we old wights are ready for the epitaph, and other last

sad rites." But when the maid is seventeen, there comes along a guy, whose car
burns up more gasoline than any man should buy. Oh, parents cut but little
grass, when that young man arrives, whose wagon, burning up the gas, puts joy in

maidens' lives. Fair Rose is scorching up the road, and hitting hills on high,
and in their silent, sad abode, the old folks sit and sigh. All broken are the
hopes and plans which in the years have grown; they know that they are also-
rans, for youth must have its own. It is the saddest thing I know—the
saddest man can find—when children from the homestead go, and never look
behind.





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