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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TWO LIVES. PART 2: 2 by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: THE OLD MAN GRUMBLED, AS WITH SLIPPERED STEPS
Last Line: IN HER HOME-MAKING, OF VAGRANT FANCIES WILD.

The Old Man grumbled, as with slippered steps
He pattered after her, or as in dream
He sadly chuckled at "the new Regime,"
Quoting fresh tidbits from Montaigne or Pepys
On wives and women and old age. And I
By the stern instinct of man's husbandhood,
Now eager to contract with fame and good
Beyond the home, would sometimes hurry by,
When she would stop me: "Set the flower-pot,
My lady, as you like, on stand or sill, --
But on my head I pray you set it not" --
(And yet that then she laughed is something still).
And sometimes, too, she seemed the restless child,
In her home-making, of vagrant fancies wild.



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