ANDROMEDA

by: Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1906)

      he smooth-worn coin and threadbare classic phrase
      Of Grecian myths that did beguile my youth,
      Beguile me not as in the olden days:
      I think more grief and beauty dwell with truth.
      Andromeda, in fetters by the sea,
      Star-pale with anguish till young Perseus came,
      Less moves me with her suffering than she,
      The slim girl figure fettered to dark shame,
      That nightly haunts the park, there, like a shade,
      Trailing her wretchedness from street to street.
      See where she passes -- neither wife nor maid;
      How all mere fiction crumbles at her feet!
      Here is woe's self, and not the mask of woe:
      A legend's shadow shall not move you so!
MORE POEMS BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

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