SONG LYRIC.

   So I became a woman when I realised I was plain.

   Somehow a child learns to guess
   the role determined by her face
   and by her neighbour's native grace,
   so she concedes to them their place--
   the women whom the poets bless,
   who burn the page with loveliness.

   For who writes songs to modest dress,
   imagination, cleverness?
   I put away my childhood when
   I realised that the kindest men
   would never find an antiphon for me;
   the sonnet charms, the lyric's fair,
   and how we ache for melody,
   but what's the natural refrain
   for women who are only plain?

   It's eyes and hands and mouth and hair
   that are the poet's raptured care--
   I was born rhymeless,
   what's to miss?
   And so we learn what we're to say:
   "Oh, I'm too practical to play",
   "She makes a great friend, anyway"--
   it's not the heart he wants to kiss!

   It's not the heart he wants to kiss,
   or he'd have kissed me long ago,
   and I shall die in learning this,
   for wounding's quick, but healing's slow.
   It isn't true that all he wants
   is faithful, thoughtful, dutiful--

   how different would my life be now,
   if I were me, but beautiful?