Time & Brevity

À quoi bon dire

by Charlotte Mew 1869–1928

From The Farmer's Bride (1921 edition)

Time & BrevityLove

Seventeen years ago you said
Something that sounded like Good-bye;
And everybody thinks that you are dead,
But I.

So I, as I grow stiff and cold
To this and that say Good-bye too;
And everybody sees that I am old
But you.

And one fine morning in a sunny lane
Some boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear
That nobody can love their way again
While over there
You will have smiled, I shall have tossed your hair.

✦ ✦ ✦

Seventeen years after a good-bye, everyone thinks the beloved dead 'but I', and the speaker ages while the other does not. A fifteen-line lyric whose title means 'what is the use of saying'.

MLA

Mew, Charlotte. “À quoi bon dire.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/mew/9/.

Chicago

Mew, Charlotte. “À quoi bon dire.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/mew/9/.

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