Dorothy Parker

“ 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? ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Morning returns to us ever too soon.
Roses unfold, in their loveliness, all for you;
Blossom the lilies for hope of your glance.
When you’re awake, all the men go and fall for you,—
Sleep, pretty lady, and give me a chance. ”

“ Love was a rose with thorns that tore us,
Love was a ship without a crew.
Love is untender, and love is untrue,
Love is a moon for a dog to bay at,
Love is the Lady-That’s-Known-as-Lou,
And love is a game that two can play at. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ I shall lie cool and quiet, who have lain
Fevered, and watched the book of day unfold.
Death will not see me flinch; the heart is bold
That pain has made incapable of pain.
Kinder the busy worms than ever love ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? . . . ”

“ Marching columns of dead events.
I was tender, and, often, true;
Ever a prey to coincidence.
Always knew I the consequence;
Always saw what the end would be.
We’re as Nature has made us—hence
I loved them until they loved me. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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? ”

“ THERE’S a place I know where the birds swing low,
And wayward vines go roaming,
Where the lilacs nod, and a marble god
Is pale, in scented gloaming.
And at sunset there comes a lady fair
Whose eyes are deep with yearning. ”

“ Though joyous dawns the rosy morn, and bright,
Because my dearest love is gone away
Within my heart is melancholy night.
My heart beats low in loneliness, despite
That riotous Summer holds the earth in sway. ”

“ Among my blackguard crew. . . .
But I am writing little verse,
As little ladies do.
Oh, I should like to dance and laugh
And pose and preen and sway,
And rip the hearts of men in half,
And toss the bits away. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ 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. ”

“ My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men. . . . ”

“ If there’s one that rode away
What would I be missing?
Lips that taste of tears, they say,
Are the best for kissing.
Eyes that watch the morning star
Seem a little brighter;
Arms held out to darkness are
Usually whiter. ”

“ Little white love, my heart’s forsaken.
(Whom shall I get by telephone?)
Well do I know there’s no returning;
Once you go out, it’s done, it’s done.
All of my days are gray with yearning.
(Nevertheless, a girl needs fun.) ”

“ NEEDLE, needle, dip and dart,
Thrusting up and down,
Where’s the man could ease a heart
Like a satin gown?
See the stitches curve and crawl
Round the cunning seams—
Patterns thin and sweet and small
As a lady’s dreams. ”

“ Now you’re casting yearning glances
At the pale Penelope;
Cutting in on Claudia’s dances;
Taking Iris out to tea.
Iole you find warm-hearted;
Zoë’s cheek is far from rough,—
Don’t you think it’s time we parted? . . . ”

“ In life, if you’ll listen to one who has been
Observant of such,
A lady in love is more frequently in
Decidedly Dutch.
The thorn, so to say, is revealed by the rose.
The best that she gets is a sock in the nose. ”

“ In me Récamier vies with Kitty O’Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.
I’m of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book. ”

“ And people remarked, in benign accord,
“You’ll see that she gathers her just reward.”
Observe, their predictions were more than fair.
She married an affluent millionaire
So gallant and handsome and wise and gay,
And rated in Bradstreet at Double A.
And she lived with him happily all her life,
And made him a perfectly elegant wife. ”

“ Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Golf course.
(Read a book, and sew a seam, and slumber if you can.)
Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Haberdasher’s.
(All your life you wait around for some damn man!) ”