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| Poetry by women |
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| Warning When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick the flowers in other peoples' gardens And learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat And eat three pounds of sausages at a go Or only bread and pickle for a week And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry And pay our rent and not swear in the street And set a good example for the children. We must have friends to dinner and read the papers. But maybe I ought to practise a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and suprised When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple. -- Jenny Joseph |
| No Obligation Come on the wings of great desire, Or stay away from me. You're not more stable than the day, Or than the day less free. The dawning day has clouds in store; Desire her cloudy moods; And sunlit woods of morning may By noon be darkened woods. So be you free to come or stay Without a reason given, As free as clouds that blot the light Across the face of heaven. --Vita Sackville-West |
| Undine Your laughter is light, your caress deep, Your cold kisses love the harm they do; Your eyes—blue lotus waves And the water lilies are less pure than your face.. You flee, a fluid parting, Your hair falls in gentle tangles; Your voice—a treacherous tide; Your arms—supple reeds. Long river reeds, their embrace Enlaces, chokes, strangles savagely, Deep in the waves, an agony Extinguished in a night drift. by Renee Vivien died 1909 |
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