The Sorrows of Charlotte
The Sorrows of Charlotte
Original Text
The Capital 2:23:1 (August 11, 1872).
2 Little girl of mine. Will I show you what
3His sorrows were like? Such a brown-eyed look
4 Could hardly see. Never mind, they were not
5Such sorrows, I fancy as yours or mine,
6But such as in pictures look so fine,
7 And such as can end – in a pistol shot.
8“Is any one else in the Book?” (I knew
9 She would ask me that.) Yes, Charlotte is there.
10“Then is it the Sorrows of Charlotte too?”
11 No, child, for never a man would care
12To write such a long sad story, you see,
13 As the – cutting of bread-and-butter would be;
14 And never a woman had time to dare!
Notes
1] In Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), the hopeless protagonist falls in love with Charlotte as she is giving bread and butter to her brothers and sisters. Back to Line
Publication Notes
Cf. Palace-Burner: The Selected Poetry of Sarah Piatt, ed. Paula Bennett (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001): 33.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004
Rhyme
Form