The Dorothy Parker / Kate Connection

[Jamie Andrews <andrews@cs.ubc.cdn>]

     This may be old news to all you diehard Katanalysts,
but...

			   --

			"Epitaph"
		    by Dorothy Parker
			  from
		   _Enough Rope_, 1926

			   --

	The first time I died, I walked my ways;
	I followed the file of limping days.

	I held me tall, with my head flung up,
	But I dared not look on the new moon's cup.

	I dared not look on the sweet young rain,
	And between my ribs was a gleaming pain.

	The next time I died, they laid me deep.
	They spoke worn words to hallow my sleep.

	They tossed me petals, they wreathed me fern,
	They weighted me down with a marble urn.

	And I lie here warm, and I lie here dry,
	And watch the worms slip by, slip by.

			   --

     Compare, in case you haven't figured it out already,
with Kate's "All the Love", from _The Dreaming_.

     BTW, _Enough Rope_ is excellent even for non-Katians.
(It's excerpted in most collections of Parker's poetry.)
It has many of her famous sayings, including "Men seldom
make passes / At girls who wear glasses", and some things
I've seen as .signatures and in the fortune file.  The first
part of it consists almost exclusively of heartbreaking
poems about betrayed love (hmm... a lot like some of _TD_,
no?).  Parker was a true original, and very much ahead of
her time.

--Jamie.
...!seismo!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto, you're beautiful"