John Crowe Ransom(1888–1974)
Blue Girls
Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward 0grass
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 hairribbons
And think no more of what will come to pass
Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass
And chattering on the air.
Practise 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 0 eyes fallen from blue,bleary
All her perfections tarnished—yet it is not long
Since she was lovelier than any of you.