Grown-up
Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?
Commentary
A delightfully whimsical little piece of commentary, all the funnier for its grain of truth. Not to mention nostalgic memories about fighting with my parents over bedtime <g>. As usual, Millay gets the tone and choice of words perfectly right; like her ‘Unexplorer’, this is not a children’s poem, but it is unmistakably a poem about childhood (to say nothing of adulthood), an image as vivid and compelling as any in Milne or Watterson.
Links
The Unexplorer (complete with Millay biography): poem #49
Complete list of Millay poems on Minstrels:
Poem #34 First Fig
Poem #49 The Unexplorer
Poem #108 The Penitent
Poem #317 Inland
Poem #604 Euclid Alone Has Looked On Beauty Bare
Poem #590 Sonnet XLIII (What lips my lips have kissed...)
-martin (who has often retired at half past eight <g>)