Portrait of a Lady
William Carlos Williams 1883 (Rutherford) – 1963 (Rutherford)
Your thighs are appletrees
whose blossoms touch the sky.
Which sky? The sky
where Watteau hung a lady's
slipper. Your knees
are a southern breeze -- or
a gust of snow. Agh! what
sort of man was Fragonard?
-- As if that answered
anything. -- Ah, yes. Below
the knees, since the tune
drops that way, it is
one of those white summer days,
the tall grass of your ankles
flickers upon the shore --
Which shore? --
the sand clings to my lips --
Which shore?
Agh, petals maybe. How
should I know?
Which shore? Which shore?
-- the petals from some hidden
appletree -- Which shore?
I said petals from an appletree.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 827 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | abbaacdeefgaaacCaChfcicc |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 590 |
Words | 116 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 24 |
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"Portrait of a Lady" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/39685/portrait-of-a-lady>.
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