Lady Geraldine's Hardship

Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)



E.B. Browning

I turned -- Heaven knows we women turn too much
To broken reeds, mistaken so for pine
That shame forbids confession -- a handle I turned
(The wrong one, said the agent afterwards)
And so flung clean across your English street
Through the shrill-tinkling glass of the shop-front-paused,
Artemis mazed 'mid gauds to catch a man,
And piteous baby-caps and christening-gowns,
The worse for being worn on the radiator.

. . . . . . .

My cousin Romney judged me from the bench:
Propounding one sleek forty-shillinged law
That takes no count of the Woman's oversoul.
I should have entered, purred he, by the door --
The man's retort -- the open obvious door --
And since I chose not, he -- not he -- could change
The man's rule, not the Woman's, for the case.
Ten pounds or seven days... Just that... I paid!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

44 sec read
76

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXXXXXXX XAABBXXX
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 804
Words 144
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 9, 8

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist chiefly remembered for his tales and poems of British soldiers in India and his tales for children. more…

All Rudyard Kipling poems | Rudyard Kipling Books

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