Dorothy Parker

Convalescent How shall I wail, that wasn’t meant for weeping? Love has run and left me, oh, what then? Dream, then, I must, who never can be sleeping; What if I should meet Love, once again? What if I met …

  Condolence They hurried here, as soon as you had died, Their faces damp with haste and sympathy, And pressed my hand in theirs, and smoothed my knee, And clicked their tongues, and watched me, mournful-eyed. Gently they told me …

  Comment 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 Roumania.   Dorothy Parker  

  Coda There’s little in taking or giving, There’s little in water or wine; This living, this living, this living Was never a project of mine. Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is The gain of the one at …

  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.”   Dorothy Parker  

  Charles Dickens Who call him spurious and shoddy Shall do it o’er my lifeless body. I heartily invite such birds To come outside and say those words!   Dorothy Parker  

  Chant For Dark Hours Some men, some men Cannot pass a Book shop. (Lady, make your mind up, and wait your life away.) Some men, some men Cannot pass a Crap game. (He said he’d come at moonrise, and …

  But Not Forgotten I think, no matter where you stray, That I shall go with you a way. Though you may wander sweeter lands, You will not soon forget my hands, Nor yet the way I held my head, …

  Bric-a-Brac Little things that no one needs — Little things to joke about — Little landscapes, done in beads. Little morals, woven out, Little wreaths of gilded grass, Little brigs of whittled oak Bottled painfully in glass; These are …

  Braggart The days will rally, wreathing Their crazy tarantelle; And you must go on breathing, But I’ll be safe in hell. Like January weather, The years will bite and smart, And pull your bones together To wrap your chattering …

  Bohemia Authors and actors and artists and such Never know nothing, and never know much. Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney. Playwrights and poets and such horses’ necks Start off …

  Ballade of Unfortunate Mammals Love is sharper than stones or sticks; Lone as the sea, and deeper blue; Loud in the night as a clock that ticks; Longer-lived than the Wandering Jew. Show me a love was done and …

  Ballade Of A Talked-Off Ear Daily I listen to wonder and woe, Nightly I hearken to knave or to ace, Telling me stories of lava and snow, Delicate fables of ribbon and lace, Tales of the quarry, the kill, …

  Ballade Of A Great Weariness There’s little to have but the things I had, There’s little to bear but the things I bore. There’s nothing to carry and naught to add, And glory to Heaven, I paid the score. …

  Ballade at Thirty-five   This, no song of an ingénue, This, no ballad of innocence; This, the rhyme of a lady who Followed ever her natural bents. This, a solo of sapience, This, a chantey of sophistry, This, the …

  Autumn Valentine In May my heart was breaking- Oh, wide the wound, and deep! And bitter it beat at waking, And sore it split in sleep. And when it came November, I sought my heart, and sighed, “Poor thing, …

  Autobiography Oh, both my shoes are shiny new, And pristine is my hat; My dress is 1922…. My life is all like that.   Dorothy Parker

  August When my eyes are weeds, And my lips are petals, spinning Down the wind that has beginning Where the crumpled beeches start In a fringe of salty reeds; When my arms are elder-bushes, And the rangy lilac pushes …

  Anecdote So silent I when Love was by He yawned, and turned away; But Sorrow clings to my apron-strings, I have so much to say.   Dorothy Parker

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson Should Heaven send me any son, I hope he’s not like Tennyson. I’d rather have him play a fiddle Than rise and bow and speak an idyll.   Dorothy Parker