I'M tired of mirthless mirrors and their hostile heresies, Of musing in a mansion hung with mildewed memories; Of the silence of the stairways, of the statuary wan, Of the alabaster angel riding on the fountain swan; I'm irked by isolation and the lawns kept so and so— I'd trade an old maid's theories for a rood of Soap Suds Row; For the sunflowers and the shanties where the shadows sit at ease, For the horde of baby banshees and the swing-scarred apple-trees; Therefore methinks I'll venture to a disarrayed domain, And shoonless dance the saraband in some assuaging lane. No sandals wrought in Sybaris, or girdle bossed with gold, But beauty in a barefoot mood, revising edicts old. There cupids turn the calendars to Michael Angelo, The goya needs no gabardine, the rose no kimono; And I, a maiden mendicant may ask an alms, forsooth, As one who missed the rubrics in the litanies of youth. |