Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971 / New York / United States)
A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty
Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.
Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.
Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.
Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.
Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?
Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?
Read poems about / on: mirror, girl, silver, star, woman, spring, night, sun, time, women
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Beautiful poem....such comforting compassion in the writers words
To my daughter 2/27/2012.
W, ords of a master clever to illustrate age and the withering tick of time,
very nice to read!
what a superb way of expressing the fear of aging..... the question at the tag end is brilliant!
What a brilliant ending to an awesome poem! !
TO
A beautiful reflection on what makes one old... does the passage of time affect our age? What is one day from the next if we do not make it so.