Classic and Contemporary Poetry
OLD MAID'S REVERIE, by NATHALIA CRANE First Line: I'm tired of mirthless mirrors and their hostile heresies Last Line: As one who missed the rubrics in the litanies of youth. Subject(s): Spinsters; Old Maids | ||||||||
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. | 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 MY AUNT by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES MEZZO CAMMIN by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW |
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