Jangling Memory

Katherine Mansfield 1888 (Wellington) – 1923 (Fontainebleau, Île-de-France)



Heavens above! here's an old tie of your--
Sea-green dragons stamped on a golden ground.
Ha! Ha! Ha!  What children we were in those days.

Do you love me enough to wear it now?
Have you the courage of your pristine glories?
Ha! Ha! Ha!  You laugh and shrug your shoulders.

Those were the days when a new tie spelt a fortune:
We wore it in turn--I flaunted it as a waist-belt.
Ha! Ha! Ha!  What easily satisfied babies.

"I think I'll turn into a piano duster."
"Give it to me, I'll polish my slippers on it!"
Ha! Ha! Ha!  The rag's not worth the dustbin.

"Throw the shabby old thing right out of the window;
Fling it into the faces of other children!"
Ha! Ha! Ha!  We laughed and laughed till the tears
     came!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
57

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXX XAX BXA XXX XBXX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 705
Words 140
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3, 3, 4

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. more…

All Katherine Mansfield poems | Katherine Mansfield Books

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    How many syllables an Iambic Pentameter line must have?
    A 10
    B 3
    C 20
    D 12