Page 50 - Poetry-Books

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I wrote some lines, from end to end
In praise of dearest May.
I showed them to a critic friend,
To see what he would say.
“They’re crude,” said he, “and so are you.”
(He was a grouty fellow!)
“Just let them lie a year or two,
To ripen and grow mellow.
“Go over them from time to time,
And polish bit by bit;
Perfect the meter and the rhyme,
And sharpen up the wit:

“In half a year, but for the theme,
And for the lady’s name,
They’ll be so changed you’ll hardly dream
The lines could be the same.”

I let them lie, I worked them o’er,
Changed epithet and rhyme.
I hardly knew them any more,
They’d mellowed so by time.
“Black eyes” had mellowed into “blue,”
And “ringlets” into “strands”;
“One dimple,” ripened into “two”;
“Small,” grown to “shapely” hands.
And what was once “nez retroussé”
Was now a “Grecian” nose;
In fact, the very name of “May “
Had mellowed into “Rose.’’

— Esther B. Tiffany (Century Magazine, 1887)

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