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 | Collected poems of Herman Melville |  |
373
THE WISE VIRGINS TO MADAM MIRROR
Madam Mirror, believe we are sorry for you;
But Ah, how console you or cheer!
We are young, we go skipping, but you
Are an old and forlorn garreteer!
'Tis we view the world thro' an arbor,
The bride with the bridegroom appears;
But you, retrospecting thro' tunnels
See but widowers and widows on biers!
To us that is foreign, in no sense will pair
With cake, wine and diamonds, and blossoms in hair!
But Ah, how console you or cheer!
We are young, we go skipping, but you
Are an old and forlorn garreteer!
'Tis we view the world thro' an arbor,
The bride with the bridegroom appears;
But you, retrospecting thro' tunnels
See but widowers and widows on biers!
To us that is foreign, in no sense will pair
With cake, wine and diamonds, and blossoms in hair!
But age!—Ah, the crow will scarce venture
To tread near the eyes flashing bold;
He's a craven; and youth is immortal;
'Tis the elderly only grow old!
To tread near the eyes flashing bold;
He's a craven; and youth is immortal;
'Tis the elderly only grow old!
But, Dame, for all misty recurrings
To beacons befogged in the past—
Less dismal they are, dame, than dubious;
Nor joy leaves us time to forecast.
Tho' the battered we hardly would banter,
And never will ridicule use,
Let us say that a twilight of inklings
Is worth scarse the Pope's old shoes.
For the rest, the skeletons meeting glass eyes
Let a parable serve, if by chance it applies.
A brace of green goggles they gabbled, old elves,
Touching my queer spectacles they had descried;
But the queerest of all were the goggles themselves,
Rusty, fusty shagreen of the puckered fish-hide!
But you, Madam Mirror, not here we type you,
Nor twit you for being a glass
With a druggish green blur and a horrible way
Of distorting all objects, alas!
Ourselves, so symmetric, our cavaliers tell,
What, squint us to witches with broomsticks to sell!
Oh yes, we are giddy, we whirl in youth's waltz,
But a fig for Reflections when crookedly false!
To beacons befogged in the past—
Less dismal they are, dame, than dubious;
Nor joy leaves us time to forecast.
Tho' the battered we hardly would banter,
And never will ridicule use,
Let us say that a twilight of inklings
Is worth scarse the Pope's old shoes.
For the rest, the skeletons meeting glass eyes
Let a parable serve, if by chance it applies.
374
Touching my queer spectacles they had descried;
But the queerest of all were the goggles themselves,
Rusty, fusty shagreen of the puckered fish-hide!
But you, Madam Mirror, not here we type you,
Nor twit you for being a glass
With a druggish green blur and a horrible way
Of distorting all objects, alas!
Ourselves, so symmetric, our cavaliers tell,
What, squint us to witches with broomsticks to sell!
Oh yes, we are giddy, we whirl in youth's waltz,
But a fig for Reflections when crookedly false!
| Collected poems of Herman Melville | |