Dorothy Parker is my very favourite poet! She is so bitter and cynical that I can't help but love her. After reading the few selections I have included below, go to the library and find a book of her work. If you are as cynical as I can be, you're bound to enjoy it!


Cherry White

I never see that prettiest thing--
A cherry bough gone white with Spring--
But what I think, "How gay 'twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree."

Distance

Were you to cross the world, my dear,
To work or love or fight,
I could be calm and wistful here,
And close my eyes at night.

It were a sweet and gallant pain
To be a sea apart;
But, oh, to have you down the lane
Is bitter to my heart.

The Evening Primrose

You know the bloom, unearthly white,
That none has seen by morning light--
The tender moon, alone, may bare
Its beauty to the secret air.
Who'd venture past its dark retreat
Must kneel, for holy things and sweet.
That blossom, mystically blown,
No man may gather for his own
Nor touch it, lest it droop and fall....
Oh, I am not like that at all!

After A Spanish Proverb

Oh, mercifullest one of all,
Oh, generous as dear,
None lived so lowly, none so small,
Thou couldst withhold thy tear:

How swift, in pure compassion,
How meek in charity,
To offer friendship to the one
Who begged but love of thee!

Oh, gentle work, and sweetest said!
Oh, tender hand, and first
To hold the warm, delicious bread
To lips burned black of thirst.

The Small Hours

No more my little song comes back;
And now of nights I lay
My head on down, to watch the black
And wait the unfailing gray.

Oh, sad are winter nights, and slow;
And sad's a song that's dumb;
And sad it is to lie and know
Another dawn will come.

Thought For A Sunshiny Morning

It costs me never a stab nor squirm
To tread by chanced upon a worm.
"Aha, my little dear," I say,
"Your clan will pay me back one day."

The above are taken from The Collected Poetry of Dorothy Parker published by Random House Publishing, New York, in 1936