Sunday, April 29, 2018

Paschal moon: walk not in woe


It’s been a while since we’ve had anything from Dorothy Parker, so we’re due.

She’s the mastery of the stiletto through the intercostals, especially when it came to romance. (Parker was definitely unlucky in love.) Viz:

“A General Review of the Sex Situation”

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?

She was hardly ever sunny, but she could slow down the pace.

“A Dream Lies Dead”

A dream lies dead here. May you softly go
Before this place, and turn away your eyes,
Nor seek to know the look of that which dies
Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,
But, for a little, let your step be slow.
And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise
With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.
A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:

Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree-
Though white of bloom as it had been before
And proudly waitful of fecundity-
One little loveliness can be no more;
And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head
Because a dream has joined the wistful dead!



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