[817] Grown-up

Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?

	-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

A delightfully whimsical little piece of commentary, all the funnier for
its grain of truth. Not to mention nostalgic memories about fighting with my
parents over bedtime <g>. As usual, Millay gets the tone and choice of words
perfectly right; like her 'Unexplorer', this is not a children's poem, but
it is unmistakably a poem about childhood (to say nothing of adulthood), an
image as vivid and compelling as any in Milne or Watterson.

Links:

  The Unexplorer (complete with Millay biography): poem #49

  Complete list of Millay poems on Minstrels:

  Poem #34 First Fig
  Poem #49 The Unexplorer
  Poem #108 The Penitent
  Poem #317 Inland
  Poem #604 Euclid Alone Has Looked On Beauty Bare
  Poem #590 Sonnet XLIII (What lips my lips have kissed...)

-martin (who has often retired at half past eight <g>)