We want a man of forty for the job. One who has enjoyed his little fill of romance. And suffered intermittent indigestion ever since. One whose memories are sufficiently cold successfully to resist the embraces of truancy. To whom a mountain no longer looms an ideal to scramble up and tumble down, but is an actual thing made of stone bristling with multitudinous edges to bark one's shins or break one's neck upon. To whom a lake or river or other body of water no longer entices the search for one's likeness (we only ask a man to be himself and not go diving after phantoms), but is a place one might readily drown in, one's muscles no longer quite what they were. Who has achieved that ultimate disillusionment: not to be able to differentiate the respective features, limbs or what not of his whilom Graces and Gwendolyns, and if he could wouldn't want to, would devote the rest of his days to a desk piled sky-high with ledgers and cash-books: Such a man would be certain to stick, we want such a man for the job. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...UNDER THE VIOLETS by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BEN JONSON ENTERTAINS A MAN FROM STRATFORD by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE PITY OF THE LEAVES by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON SISTER HELEN by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI FROM HIDDEN SOURCE by JEAN ANDERSON ALEXANDER VI DINES WITH THE CARDINAL OF CAPUA by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET |