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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BOX, by MARGUERITE ARNOLD First Line: A dozen times she washed her hands Last Line: Only a father and mother can tell. Subject(s): Rhyme | |||
A dozen times she washed her hands And moved, frail-pink, across the hall, And sat combing her pale-gold hair, And sat staring against the wall. Outside the sea would roar its blue Against the plumeless white of her. Along the sill a tawny cat Would lie, and daintily stretch and purr. Her eyes were green as icebergs are. Carved she was of a marble shaft; Pearly she was, with the luster gone. She combed her hair, and she was daft. And when her sister's child came home, Crying out beyond the stair, A look came on of a wild-cat thing Brought to bay in a jungle lair. A jade-green box, milky with light, She loved to hold. A day she sits, The child laughs out, she gets her up And hurls it, and laughs at the sorry bits. The child not hers; the box a well Of the empty loves and the clapperless bell; And of what sad reckoning she was born Only a father and mother can tell. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CATCH A LITTLE RHYME by EVE MERRIAM ESSAY: THE INFINITE ASSONANCES WITHIN by ELENI SIKELIANOS SWEATER WEATHER: A LOVE SONG TO LANGUAGE by SHARON BRYAN A FIT OF RHYME AGAINST RHYME [OR, RIME] by BEN JONSON A RHYME by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE ERRING IN COMPANY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS ON THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF READING MATTER by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS THE BARD'S EXCUSE by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |
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