Finis - Dorothy Parker

 Now it's over, and now it's done;

       Why does everything look the same?

Surprise - Dorothy Parker

 My heart went fluttering with fear

Lest you should go, and leave me here

To beat my breast and rock my head

And stretch me sleepless on my bed.

Ah, clear they see and true they say

That one shall weep, and one shall stray

For such is Love's unvarying law….

I never thought, I never saw

That I should be the first to go;

How pleasant that it happened so!

But not forgotten - Dorothy Parker

 I think, no matter where you stray,

That I shall go with you a way.

Though you may wander sweeter lands,

You will not soon forget my hands,

Nor yet the way I held my head,

Nor all the tremulous things I said.

You still will see me, small and white

And smiling, in the secret night,

And feel my arms about you when

The day comes fluttering back again.

I think, no matter where you be,

You'll hold me in your memory

And keep my image, there without me,

By telling later loves about me.

Rhyme Against Living - Dorothy Parker

If wild my breast and sore my pride,

I bask in dreams of suicide;

If cool my heart and high my head,

I think, "How lucky are the dead!"

Song in a Minor Key - Dorothy Parker

There's a place I know where the birds swing low,

      And wayward vines go roaming,

Where the lilacs nod, and a marble god

      Is pale, in scented gloaming.

And at sunset there comes a lady fair

      Whose eyes are deep with yearning.

By an old, old gate does the lady wait

      Her own true love's returning.

But the days go by, and the lilacs die,

      And trembling birds seek cover;

Yet the lady stands, with her long white hands

      Held out to greet her lover.

And it's there she'll stay till the shadowy day

      A monument they grave her.

She will always wait by the same old gate, —

      The gate her true love gave her.

A very short song - Dorothy Parker

 Once , when I was young and true,

        Someone left me sad—

Broke my brittle heart in two;

     And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,

     Love is but a curse.

Once there was a heart I broke;

     And that, I think, is worse.

Incurable - Dorothy Parker

 And if my heart be scarred and burned, 

The safer, I, for all I learned; 

The calmer, I, to see it true 

That ways of love are never new— 

The love that sets you daft and dazed 

Is every love that ever blazed; 

The happier, I, to fathom this: 

A kiss is every other kiss. 

The reckless vow, the lovely name, 

When Helen walked, were spoke the same; 

The weighted breast, the grinding woe, 

When Phaon fled, were ever so. 

Oh, it is sure as it is sad 

That any lad is every lad, 

And what’s a girl, to dare implore 

Her dear be hers forevermore? 

Though he be tried and he be bold, 

And swearing death should he be cold, 

He’ll run the path the others went.…

But you, my sweet, are different.

Resumé - Dorothy Parker

 Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live. 

Love Song - Dorothy Parker

My own dear love, he is strong and bold

      And he cares not what comes after.

His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,

      And his eyes are lit with laughter.

He is jubilant as a flag unfurled—

      Oh, a girl, she’d not forget him.

My own dear love, he is all my world,—

      And I wish I’d never met him.

My love, he’s mad, and my love, he’s fleet,

      And a wild young wood-thing bore him!

The ways are fair to his roaming feet,

      And the skies are sunlit for him.

As sharply sweet to my heart he seems

      As the fragrance of acacia.

My own dear love, he is all my dreams,—

      And I wish he were in Asia.

My love runs by like a day in June,

      And he makes no friends of sorrows.

He’ll tread his galloping rigadoon

      In the pathway of the morrows.

He’ll live his days where the sunbeams start,

      Nor could storm or wind uproot him.

My own dear love, he is all my heart,—

      And I wish somebody’d shoot him.