Dorothy Parker

“ What I envy about Freddie is that poise of his. He can come right into a room full of strangers, and be just as much at home as if he had gone through grammar school with them. He smashes the ice all to nothing the moment he is introduced to the other guests by pretending to misunderstand their names, and calling them something entirely different, keeping a perfectly straight face all the time as if he never realized there was anything wrong. ”

“ Sleep, pretty lady, the night is enfolding you,
Drift, and so lightly, on crystalline streams.
Wrapped in its perfumes, the darkness is holding you;
Starlight bespangles the way of your dreams.
Chorus the nightingales, wistfully amorous;
Blessedly quiet, the blare of the day.
All the sweet hours may your visions be glamorous,—
Sleep, pretty lady, as long as you may.
Sleep, pretty lady, the night shall be still for you;
Silvered and silent, it watches your rest.
Each little breeze, in its eagerness, will for you
Murmur the melodies ancient and blest. ”

“ Frequently, after a card has been played, he will lean over and in a good-humoured way tell the player what he should have done instead, and how he might just as well throw his hand down then and there, but he always refuses to take any more active part in the game. Occasionally, when a uniquely poisonous play is made, I have seen Henry thrust his chair aside and pace about in speechless excitement, but for the most part he is admirably self-controlled. He always leaves with a few cheery words to the players, urging them to keep at it and not let themselves get discouraged. ”

“ WHEN my eyes are weeds,
And my lips are petals, spinning
Down the wind that has beginning
Where the crumpled beeches start
In a fringe of salty reeds;
When my arms are elder-bushes,
And the rangy lilac pushes
Upward, upward through my heart ”

“ Though joyous dawns the rosy morn, and bright.
Ungraceful seems to me the swallow's flight;
As well might Heaven's blue be sullen gray;
My soul discerns no beauty in their sight
Because my dearest love is gone away.
Let roses fling afar their crimson spray,
And virgin daisies splash the fields with white,
Let bloom the poppy hotly as it may,
Within my heart is melancholy night. ”

“ HOW shall I wail, that wasn’t meant for weeping?
Love has run and left me, oh, what then?
Dream, then, I must, who never can be sleeping;
What if I should meet Love, once again?
What if I met him, walking on the highway? ”

“ Back to bed I’m bound to go.
High my heart, or bowed my head,
All my days but lead to bed.
Up, and out, and on; and then
Ever back to bed again,
Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall—
I’m a fool to rise at all! ”

“ Spring bore blossoms expressly for us,
Stars lined up to spell "Y-O-U."
All the world wore a golden hue,
Life was a thing to be bold and gay at;
Love was the only game I knew,
And love is a game that two can play at. ”

“ My love runs by like a day in June,
And he makes no friends of sorrows.
He’ll tread his galloping rigadoon
In the pathway of the morrows.
He’ll live his days where the sunbeams start,
Nor could storm or wind uproot him. ”

“ Consider a lady gone reckless in love,
In novels and plays:
You watch her proceed in a drapery of
A roseate haze.
Acclaimed as a riot, a wow, and a scream,
She flies with her beau to les Alpes Maritimes,
And moves in a mist of a mutual dream
The rest of her days.
In life, if you'll listen to one who has been
Observant of such,
A lady in love is more frequently in
Decidedly Dutch. ”

“ My one love came along,
And I ran the slope of my high hill
To follow a thread of song.
His eyes were hard as porphyry
With looking on cruel lands;
His voice went slipping over me
Like terrible silver hands. ”

“ Lancelike your courage, gleaming swift and strong,
Yours the white rapture of a wingèd soul,
Yours is a spirit like a May-day song.
(God help you, if you break the goldfish bowl!)
"Whatever is, is good," your gracious creed.
You wear your joy of living like a crown.
Love lights your simplest act, your every deed. ”

“ They spoke worn words to hallow my sleep.
They tossed me petals, they wreathed me fern,
They weighted me down with a marble urn.
And I lie here warm, and I lie here dry,
And watch the worms slip by, slip by. ”

“ Blossoms in her tumbled hair,
High of heart, and fancy-free—
When was maiden half so fair?
Bright her eyes with easy tears,
Wanton-sweet, her smiles for men.
“Winter’s gone,” she cries, “and here’s
Spring again.” ”

“ Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. ”

“ Be the one to love the less:
This is what I pray.
This is what I know:
Lovers’ oaths are thin as rain;
Love’s a harbinger of pain—
Would it were not so!
Ever is my heart a-thirst,
Ever is my love accurst ”

“ That hangs about my neck—a clumsy stone
Cut with a birth, a death, a bridal-day.
Each time I love, I find it still my own,
Who take it, now to that lad, now to this,
Seeking to give the wretched thing away. ”

“ Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania. ”

“ Just because some words were wise?
If he whistles low and clear
When the insistent moon is near
And the secret stars are known,—
Will your heart be still your own
Just because some words were true? . . . ”

“ Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it? ”

“ Speak the fair, insistent verse,
Vow to God, and slip apart,
Little better, little worse.
Would we need not know before
How shall end this prettiness;
One of us must love the more,
One of us shall love the less. ”

“ I SHALL tread, another year,
Ways I walked with Grief,
Past the dry, ungarnered ear
And the brittle leaf.
I shall stand, a year apart,
Wondering, and shy,
Thinking, “Here she broke her heart;
Here she pled to die.” ”

“ False young Death would not hold the tryst.
Slow’s the blood that was quick and stormy,
Smooth and cold is the bridal bed;
I must wait till he whistles for me—
Proud young Death would not turn his head. ”

“ And speak a little name I said,
Then you will say “There was a lass—
I wonder is she dead.”
And each of us will sigh, and start
A-talking of a faded year,
And lay a hand above a heart,
And dry a pretty tear. ”

“ Fiddling for their dinners,
Kissing for their beds.
Not a one had seen us
Wouldn’t help him flee.
Angry ran between us
Blood of him and me.
How shall I be mating
Who have looked above—
Living for a hating,
Dying of a love? ”

“ Just as bright, the unheeding sun,—
Can’t it see that the parting came?
People hurry and work and swear,
Laugh and grumble and die and wed,
Ponder what they will eat and wear,—
Don’t they know that our love is dead? ”

“ I’d warble gaily as a thrush
About my little chores.
But though I’d cook and sew and scrub,
A higher life I’d find;
I’d join a little women’s club
And cultivate my mind.
If you and I were one, my dear,
A model life we’d lead. ”

“ And click my tongue in sympathy,
And count the cracks in paving stones.
My door is grave in oaken strength,
The cool of linen calms my bed,
And there at night I stretch my length
And envy no one but the dead. ”

“ The years will bite and smart,
And pull your bones together
To wrap your chattering heart.
The pretty stuff you’re made of
Will crack and crease and dry.
The thing you are afraid of
Will look from every eye. ”

“ Quiet valleys dip and shine.
Where their tender grasses heal
Ancient scars of trench and tomb
I shall never walk; nor kneel
Where the bones of poets bloom.
If I seek a lovelier part,
Where I travel goes my heart ”

“ Yet this the need of woman, this her curse:
To range her little gifts, and give, and give,
Because the throb of giving’s sweet to bear.
To you, who never begged me vows or verse,
My gift shall be my absence, while I live ”

“ Always I’ve known that it had to end
Sooner or later.
Always I knew it would come like this
(Pattering rain, and the grasses springing) ,
Sweeter to you is a new love’s kiss
(Flickering sunshine, and young birds singing) . ”

“ I wander in the weeds;
And people scream and bar the door,
And rattle at their beads.
We cannot rest, we never rest
Within a narrow bed
Who still must love the living best—
Who hate the drowsy dead! ”

“ And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died. ”

“ Who will live to tell their siring?
Hear me now, nor let me rot
Wistful still, and still aspiring.
Ghosts of dear temptations, heed;
I am frail, be you forgiving.
See you not that I have need
To be living with the living? ”

“ Into patterns he shall please.
Let him see your passion is
Ever tenderer than his. . . .
Go and bless your star above,
Thus are you, and thus is Love.
He will leave you white with woe,
If you go the way you go. ”