Poetry


A collection of ten poems written by Dorothy Parker:

“The Far-Sighted Muse”
By Dorothy Parker

Dark though the clouds, they are silver-lined;
                (This is the stuff that they like to read.)
If Winter comes, Spring is right behind;
                (This is the stuff that the people need.)
Smile, and the World will smile back at you;
                Aim with a grin, and you cannot miss;
Laugh off your woes, and you won’t feel blue.
                (Poetry pays when it’s done like this.)

Whatever it is, is completely sweet;
                (This is the stuff that will bring in gold.)
Just to be living’s a perfect treat;
                (This is the stuff that will knock them cold.)
How could we, any of us, be sad?
                Always our blessings outweighing our ills;
Always there’s something to make us glad.
                (This is the way you can pay your bills.)

Everything’s great, in this good old world;
                (This is the stuff they can always use.)
God’s in His heaven, the hill’s dew-pearled;
                (This will provide for the baby’s shoes.)
Hunger and War, do not mean a thing;
                Everything’s rosy, where’er we roam;
Hark, how the little birds gaily sing!
                (This is what fetches the bacon home.)

“The Gunman and the Debutante”
By Dorothy Parker

A wild and wicked gunman – one who held a gang in thrall –
                A menace to the lives of me and you,
Was counting up, exultingly, the day’s successful haul –
                As gunmen are extremely apt to do.
A string of pearls, a watch or two, a roll of bills, a ring,
                Some pocketbooks – about a dozen, say –
An emerald tiara – oh, a very pretty thing!
                Yes, really, quite a gratifying day.

A dainty little debutante came trippingly along,
                With wistful, trusting eyes of baby blue;
She softly hummed a fragment of a most Parisian song –
                As debutantes are very apt to do.
That wild and wicked gunman felt he couldn’t miss the chance
                To end his busy day triumphantly;
“Though scarcely in the habit of attacking debutantes,
                Your money or your life, my dear,” said he.

The dainty little debutante was trembling with alarm,
                Appealingly she looked him through and through,
And laid her helpless little hand upon his brawny arm –
                As debutantes are very apt to do.
Then earnestly she prayed the wicked gunman to be good,
                She begged that he’d reform that very day;
Until he dropped his wicked gun, and promised that he would,
                And bade her go her sweet and harmless way.

The wild and wicked gunman sat considering it all.
                “At last,” he cried, “I’ve met my Waterloo”;
He vowed he’d give to charity the day’s successful haul –
                As gunmen are extremely apt to do.
But when he tried to find his gains and give to those in want –
                The pocketbooks, the watches, bills and ring –
He found, to his amazement, that the little debutante
                Had taken every solitary thing!

"Men"
A Hate Song
By Dorothy Parker

I hate Men;
They irritate me.

There are the Serious Thinkers---
There ought to be a law against them.
They see life, as through shell-rimmed glasses, darkly.
They are always drawing their weary hands
Across their wan brows.
They talk about Humanity
As if they had just invented it;
They have to keep helping it along.
They revel in strikes
And they are eternally getting up petitions.
They are doing a wonderful thing for the Great Unwashed----
They are living right down among them.
They can hardly wait
For "The Masses" to appear on the newsstands,
And they read all those Russian novels----
The sex best sellers.

There are the Cave Men----
The Specimens of Red-Blooded Manhood.
They eat everything very rare,
They are scarcely ever out of their cold baths,
And they want everybody to feel their muscles.
They talk in loud voices,
Using short Anglo-Saxon words.
They go around raising windows,
And they slap people on the back,
And tell them what they need is exercise.
They are always just on the point of walking to San Francisco,
Or crossing the ocean in a sailboat,
Or going through Russia on a sled---
I wish to God they would!

And then there are the Sensitive Souls
Who do interior decorating, for Art's sake.
They always smell faintly of vanilla
And put drops of sandalwood on their cigarettes.
They are continually getting up costume balls
So that they can go
As something out of the "Arabian Nights."
They give studio teas
Where people sit around on cushions
And wish they hadn't come.
they look at a woman languorously, through half-closed eyes,
And tell her, in low, passionate tones,
What she ought to wear.
Colour is everything to them--everything;
The wrong shade of purple
Gives them a nervous breakdown.

Then there are the ones
Who are Simply Steeped in Crime.
They tell you how they haven't been to bed
For four nights.
They frequent those dramas
Where the only good lines
Are those of the chorus.
They stagger from one cabaret to another,
And they give you the exact figures of their gambling debts.
They hint darkly at the terrible part
That alcohol plays in their lives.
And then they shake their heads
And say Heaven must decide what is going to become of them---
I wish I were Heaven!

I hate Men;
They irritate me.

“Song of Americans Resident in France”
By Dorothy Parker

Oh, we are the bold expatriate band!
Allegiance we vow to our chosen land.
How gladly we’d offer our all to France.
We’d give her our honor, our souls, our pants.
We hail her the highest of earthly heavens;
We wriggle our shoulders, and cross our 7’s.
With tolerant laughter we rock and sway
Whenever we think of the U.S.A.
At Yankee behavior we writhe and blench.
Our English is rusty – we think in French.
The Sorrows of France disarrange our sleep;
With Gallic abandon we bleed, we weep.
We long to lay down for her all we have;
We love her, we love her, la belle, la brave!
We’d see given back to her all her due –
The grandeur, the glory that once she knew.
We’d have her triumphantly hung with flowers,
Acknowledged supremest of all the Powers,
Her dominance written in white and black . . .
But, boy, we’d be sore if the franc came back!

“Threat to a Fickle Lady”
By Dorothy Parker

Sweet Lady Sleep, befriend me;
                In pretty mercy, hark.
Your charming manners, tend me –
                Let down your lovely dark.

Sweet lady, take me to you,
                Becalm mine eyes, my breath . . . .
Remember, I that woo you
                Have but to smile at Death . . . .

“Woodland Song”
By Dorothy Parker

The hothouses’ offerings, costly and rare,
                Cannot ape the forget-me-not’s blue;
Blooms forced to perfection can’t hope to compare
                With the lowly anemone’s hue.
The humble wild rose, unassuming and meek,
                Must have stolen the setting sun’s glow;
The blushes which o’er its delicate cheek
                Are of tints that no palette may know.

No matter how lovely these flowers may be,
Gardenias and orchids look better to me.

The purple-eyed violet, fragrantly cool,
                Spends its beauty extravagantly.
The waxen-white lily that sleeps on the pool
                Gives its loveliness lavishly free.
Their glorious petals the poppies unfold
                For whoever may happen to pass,
And nature, made mad by the buttercups’ gold,
                Flings it wantonly over the grass.

“Fragment”
By Dorothy Parker

Why should we set these hearts of ours above
                The rest, and cramp them in possession’s clutch?
Poor things, we gasp and strain to capture love,
                And in our hands, it powders at our touch.
We turn the fragrant pages of the past,
                Mournful with scent of passion’s faded flow’rs,
On every one we read, “Love cannot last” –
                So how could ours?

It is the quest that thrills, and not the gain,
                The mad pursuit, and not the cornering:
Love caught is but a drop of April rain,
                But bloom upon the moth’s translucent wing.
Why should you dare to hope that you and I
                Could make love’s fitful flash a lasting flame?
Still, if you think it’s only fair to try –
                Well, I am game.

“Lyric”
By Dorothy Parker

How the arrogant iris would wither and fade
                If the soft summer dew never fell.
And the timid arbutus that hides in the shade
                Would no longer make fragrant the dell!
All the silver-flecked fishes would languish and die
                Were it not for the foam-spangled stream;
Little brooks could not flow, without rain from the sky;
                Nor a poet get on without dreams.

If the blossoms refused their pale honey, the bees
                Must in idleness hunger and pine;
While the moss cannot live, when it’s torn from the trees,
                Nor the waxen-globed mistletoe twine.
Were it not for the sunshine, the birds wouldn’t sing,
                And the heavens would never be blue.
But of all Nature’s works, the most wonderful thing
                Is how well I get on without you.

 “To My Dog”
By Dorothy Parker

I often wonder why on earth
                You rate yourself so highly;
A shameless parasite, from birth
                You’ve lived the life of Reilly.
No claims to fame distinguish you’
                Your talents are not many;
You’re constantly unfaithful to
                Your better self – if any.
Yet you believe, with faith profound,
                The world revolves around you;
May I point out, it staggered ‘round
                For centuries without you?

In beauty, you’re convinced you lead,
                While others only follow.
You think you look like Wallace Reid,
                Or, at the least, Apollo.
The fatal charms with which you’re blest,
                You fancy, spell perfection;
The notion, may I not suggest,
                Is open to correction?
An alien streak your tail betrays;
                Your ears aren’t what they would be;
Your mother was – forgive the phrase –
                No better than she should be.

One can but feel your gaiety
                Is somewhat over-hearty;
You take it on yourself to be
                The life of every party.
In bearing, while no doubt sincere,
                You’re frankly too informal.
And mentally, I sometimes fear,
                You’re slightly under normal.
The least attention turns your brain,
                Repressions slip their tether;
Pray spare your friends the nervous strain
                And pull yourself together!

You take no thought for others’ good
                In all your daily dealings,
I ask you, as a mother would,
                Where are your finer feelings?
I think I’ve seldom run across
                A life so far from lawful;
Your manners are a total loss,
                Your morals, something awful.
Perhaps you’ll ask, as many do,
                What I endure your thrall for?
‘Twas ever thus – it’s such as you
                That women always fall for.

 “Love Song”
By Dorothy Parker

Suppose we two were cast away
                On some deserted strand,
Where in the breeze the palm trees sway –
                A sunlit wonderland;
Where never human footstep fell,
                Where tropic love-birds woo,
Like Eve and Adam we could dwell,
                In paradise, for two.
Would you, I wonder, tire of me
                As sunny days went by,
And would you welcome joyously
                A steamer? . . . So would I.

Suppose we sought bucolic ways
                And led the simple life,
Away – as runs the happy phrase –
                From cities’ toil and strife.
There you and I could live alone,
                And share our hopes and fears.
A small-town Darby and his Joan,
                We’d face the quiet years.
I wonder, would you ever learn
                My charms could pall on you,
And would you let your fancy turn
                To others? . . . I would, too.

Between us two (suppose once more)
                Had rolled the bounding deep;
You journeyed to a foreign shore,
                And left me here to weep.
I wonder if you’d be the same,
                Though we were far apart,
And if you’d always bear my name
                Engraved upon your heart.
Or would you bask in other smiles,
                And, charmed by novelty,
Forget the one so many miles
                Away? . . . That goes for me.









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