I heard them talking, muttering and mouthing While we rubbed the linen on the shining wet stones, And for all the sun was blazing it made me shiver -- "Bonny, eh, she's bonny -- @3but she'll never make old bones!"@1 Yet, when I looked at them -- great-granny Dinger And Aunt Mary Holly will be ninety come June, Shrivelled up and yellow-gray and dim-eyed and wheezing -- Then I stuck my chin out and I said: "I'd just as soon!" I ran away to the pool in the clearing; There I saw the whole of me, smooth and pink and fresh . . . Well, let 'em stay till their old bones crumble -- I'll be going gayly in my sweet, young flesh! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...QUA CURSUM VENTUS by ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH BY THE ALMA RIVER by DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK WRITTEN IN KEATS' 'ENDYMION' by THOMAS HOOD A BABY ASLEEP AFTER PAIN by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE CRADLE SONG (TO A TUNE OF BLAKE'S): 1 by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE THE STEAM-ENGINE: CANTO 9. VISION OF THE WORLD by T. BAKER TENNESSEE; PRIZE CENTENNIAL ODE (1896) by VIRGINIA FRAZER BOYLE |