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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
OLD SADIE, by EDITH CHERRINGTON
First Line: Old sadie, mop in hand, plods up a flight
Last Line: How base the model clay has come to be.
Subject(s): Museums; Old Age; Art Gallerys
First Line: Old sadie, mop in hand, plods up a flight
Last Line: How base the model clay has come to be.
Subject(s): Museums; Old Age; Art Gallerys
Old Sadie, mop in hand, plods up a flight
Of ornamental stairs to wash away
Day's dusty footprints in her pail of night --
A sordid daughter of a scarlet day
Grown weary and insensate through excess,
Repulsive in her carelessness, and shoddy.
To see her passing one would never guess
That once a sculptor reproduced her body
In marble. Now Old Sadie scrubs the floor
Of the museum where the statue stands.
She even dusts the loveliness she wore,
Touching the sculptured face with grimy hands;
Thankful, perhaps, that marble cannot see
How base the model clay has come to be.
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