Woman dusting and using a vacuum cleaner, 1920-1954. Photo by U.S. Department of Agriculture. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
| The Gentle Housewife (1922) by |
| from Poetry, July 1922 |
The Gentle Housewife[]
There’s the first white butterfly dancing abroad!
There are wild wind-flowers dotting the sward;
There are wild green breakers combing the bay;
There’s a red ferret darting over the way!
But I am chiding the children for being so wild;
I am chiding the nurse for chiding the child;
I am careful to lay down tea-leaves in the hall;
I am gazing at that spot of mildew on the wall —
And my heart is breaking, breaking,
With the hatred of it all!
This poem is in the public domain