Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward <br />Under the towers of your seminary, <br />Go listen to your teachers old and contrary <br />Without believing a word. <br /> <br />Tie the white fillets then about your hair <br />And think no more of what will come to pass <br />Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass <br />And chattering on the air. <br /> <br />Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail; <br />And I will cry with my loud lips and publish <br />Beauty which all our power shall never establish, <br />It is so frail. <br /> <br />For I could tell you a story which is true; <br />I know a woman with a terrible tongue, <br />Blear eyes fallen from blue, <br />All her perfections tarnished -- yet it is not long <br />Since she was lovelier than any of you.<br /><br />John Crowe Ransom<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/blue-girls/
