When a woman looks up at you with a twist about her eyes, And her brows are half uplifted in a nicely feigned surprise As you breathe some pretty sentence, though she hates you all the while, She is very apt to stun you with a made to order smile. It's a subtle combination of a sneer and a caress, With a dash of warmth thrown in it to relieve its iciness, And she greets you when she meets you with that look as if a file Had been used to fix and fashion out the made to order smile. I confess that I'm eccentric and am not a woman's man, For they seem to be constructed on the bunko fakir plan, And it somehow sets me thinking that her heart is full of guile When a woman looks up at me with a made to order smile. Now, all maidens, young and aged, hear the lesson I would teach -- Ye who meet us in the ballroom, ye who meet us at the beach -- Pray consent to try and charm us by some other sort of wile And relieve us from the burden of that made to order smile. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPEAKIN' O' CHRISTMAS by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR TO A DOG'S MEMORY by LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY AS THE GREEK'S SIGNAL FLAME by WALT WHITMAN PROMETHEUS BOUND: PROMETHEUS IN THE EARTHQUAKE by AESCHYLUS A FRAGMENT OF AN EPIC POEM, OCCASIONED BY THE LOSS OF A GAME by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THE PLAYERS by FRANCIS LAWRENCE BICKLEY LYING AT A REVEREND FRIEND'S HOUSE, THE AUTHOR LEFT .. VERSE by ROBERT BURNS |