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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