Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MY AUNT, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: My aunt! My dear unmarried aunt! / long years have over her flown Last Line: On my ancestral tree. Subject(s): Aunts; Spinsters; Old Maids | ||||||||
MY aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! Long years have o'er her flown; Yet still she strains the aching clasp That binds her virgin zone; I know it hurts her, -- though she looks As cheerful as she can; Her waist is ampler than her life, For life is but a span. My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! Her hair is almost gray; Why will she train that winter curl In such a spring-like way? How can she lay her glasses down, And say she reads as well, When through a double convex lens She just makes out to spell? Her father -- grandpapa! forgive This erring lip its smiles -- Vowed she should make the finest girl Within a hundred miles; He sent her to a stylish school; 'T was in her thirteenth June; And with her, as the rules required, "Two towels and a spoon." They braced my aunt against a board, To make her straight and tall; They laced her up, they starved her down, To make her light and small; They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, They screwed it up with pins; -- Oh, never mortal suffered more In penance for her sins. So, when my precious aunt was done, My grandsire brought her back; (By daylight, lest some rabid youth Might follow on the track;) "Ah!" said my grandsire, as he shook Some powder in his pan, "What could this lovely creature do Against a desperate man!" Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, Nor bandit cavalcade, Tore from the trembling father's arms His all-accomplished maid. For her how happy had it been! And Heaven had spared to me To see one sad, ungathered rose On my ancestral tree. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG OF A SPINSTER by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON EMILY HARDCASTLE, SPINSTER by JOHN CROWE RANSOM SOME FOREIGN LETTERS by ANNE SEXTON PASSPORT BLUES by MALCOLM COWLEY A SPINSTER'S STINT by ALICE CARY MEZZO CAMMIN by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW DOROTHY IN THE GARRET by JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY [DECEMBER 16, 1773] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES |
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