An Ancient Gesture
I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.
And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture,—a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope...
Penelope, who really cried.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 17, 2023
- 44 sec read
- 478 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABXCCCDDB AEEBFEXF |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 765 |
Words | 147 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 8 |
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"An Ancient Gesture" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 17 Feb. 2025. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/9343/an-ancient-gesture>.
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