Introducing Irony (Version 2)

<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE SCRUB-WOMAN</h2> <p class="center">(<i>A Sentimental Poem</i>)</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><div class="drop-cap2">TIME has placed his careful insult</div> </div> <div class="verse">Upon your body.</div> <div class="verse">In other ages Time gave rags</div> <div class="verse">To hags without riches, but now he brings</div> <div class="verse">Cotton, calico, and muslin&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">Tokens of his admiration</div> <div class="verse">For broken backs.</div> <div class="verse">Neat nonsense, stamped with checks and stripes,</div> <div class="verse">Fondles the deeply marked sneer</div> <div class="verse">That Time has dropped upon you.</div> <div class="verse">While Time, in one of his well-debated moods</div> <div class="verse">That men call an age, is attending to his manners,</div> <div class="verse">I shall scan the invisible banners</div> <div class="verse">Of meaning that unfurl when you move.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>II</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="giant">W</span>HEN you open your mouths</div> <div class="verse">I see a well, and strangled chastity</div> <div class="verse">At the bottom&mdash;not chastity</div> <div class="verse">Of the flesh, but lucid purity</div> <div class="verse">Of the mind choked by a design</div> <div class="verse">Of filth that has slowly turned cold,</div> <div class="verse">Like a sewer intruding</div> <div class="verse">Upon a small, dead face.</div> <div class="verse">This is not repulsive.</div> <div class="verse">Only things alive, with gaudy hollows,</div> <div class="verse">Can repulse, but your death holds</div> <div class="verse">A haggard candour that gently thrusts its way</div> <div class="verse">Into the unimportance of facts.</div> <div class="verse">You are not old: you were never young.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Life caressed your senses</div> <div class="verse">With a heavy sterility,</div> <div class="verse">And you thanked him with the remnant</div> <div class="verse">Of thought that he left behind&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">His usual moment of absentminded kindness.</div> <div class="verse">When the muscles of your arm</div> <div class="verse">Punish the brush that rubs upon wood</div> <div class="verse">I see a rollicking mockery&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">Rhythm in starved pursuit</div> <div class="verse">Of petrified desire.</div> <div class="verse">When the palms of your hands</div> <div class="verse">Stay flat in dirty water</div> <div class="verse">I can observe your emotions</div> <div class="verse">Welcome refuse as perfume,</div> <div class="verse">Intent upon a last ghastly deception.</div> <div class="verse">When you grunt and touch your hair</div> <div class="verse">I perceive your exhaustion</div> <div class="verse">Reaching for a bit of pity</div> <div class="verse">And carefully rearranging it.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Lift up your pails and go home;</div> <div class="verse">Take the false tenderness of rest;</div> <div class="verse">Drop your clothes, disordered, on the floor.</div> <div class="verse">Vindictive simplicity.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />