Blue Girls

John Crowe Ransom 1888 (Pulaski) – 1974 (Gambier)



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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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 11, 2023

38 sec read
238

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAAX BCCB DEED FXFXF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 683
Words 129
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 5

John Crowe Ransom

John Crowe Ransom was an educator, scholar, literary critic, poet, essayist and editor. more…

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