Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
Without believing a word.
Tie the white fillets then about your hair
And think no more of what will come to pass
Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass
And chattering on the air.
Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;
And I will cry with my loud lips and publish
Beauty which all our power shall never establish,
It is so frail.
For I could tell you a story which is true;
I know a woman with a terrible tongue,
Blear eyes fallen from blue,
All her perfections tarnished — yet it is not long
Since she was lovelier than any of you.
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Reply: to leasle
From guest nathan (contact)
your summary of the poem really helped me understand what this poem is saying thank you leasle -
poem
From guest leasle (contact)
i like this poem the blue girls thing is pretty cool i can really see a visual of them. -
This is Ransom's "Gather ye rosebuds..." or "Beauty is fleeting..." poem, as he paints a picture of young schoolgirls,
beautiful in their youth and vitality, wrapped up in that beauty. They are of the moment, so immersed in their young world that they do not see that beauty fades and age takes its toll.
This poem says to me that those treasures of youth, in this case, beauty, will lose their value as time passes.
At first this poem evokes a feeling of lighthearted joy. Yet at the end the feeling changes to one of inescapable destiny.
The imagery is clearcut and real and the rhyme scheme well done.
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