Dorothy Parker

Comment | One Perfect Rose | Prophetic Soul | Social Note | Somebody's Story | Symphony Recital | Theory | Unfortunate Coincidence


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Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Rumania.

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One Perfect Rose

A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
"My fragile leaves," it said,"his heart enclose."
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

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Prophetic Soul

Because your eyes are slant and slow,
Because your hair is sweet to touch,
My heart is high against; but oh,
I doubt if this will get me much.

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Social Note

Lady, lady, should you meet
One whose ways are all discreet,
One who murmurs that his wife
Is the lodestar of his life,
One who keeps assuring you
That he never was untrue,
Never loved another one...
Lady, lady, better run!

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Somebody's Story

This is what I vow:
He shall have my heart to keep;
Sweetly will we stir and sleep,
All the years, as now.
Swift the measured sands may run,
Love like this is never done
He and I are welded one:
This is what I vow.
This is what I pray:
Keep him by me tenderly,
Keep him sweet in pride of me,
Ever and a day.
Keep me from the old distress;
Let me, for our happiness,
Be the one to love the less:
This is what I pray.
This is what I know:
Lovers' oaths are thin as rain,
Love's a harbinger of pain.
Would it were not so!
Ever is my heart a thirst,
Ever is my love accurst,
He is neither last nor first:
This is what I know.

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Symphony Recital

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I have to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me anymore.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men....
I'm due to fall in love again.

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Theory

Into love and out again,
Thus I went, and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen--
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said.
Could it be, when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?

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Unfortunate Coincidence

By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying-
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

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