So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl <br />With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them, <br />And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me, <br />And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad <br />All over, etc., etc.' <br />Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read <br />Sophocles in a fairly good translation <br />And caught that bitter allusion to the sea, <br />But all the time he was talking she had in mind <br />The notion of what his whiskers would feel like <br />On the back of her neck. She told me later on <br />That after a while she got to looking out <br />At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad, <br />Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds <br />And blandishments in French and the perfumes. <br />And then she got really angry. To have been brought <br />All the way down from London, and then be addressed <br />As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort <br />Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty. <br />Anyway, she watched him pace the room <br />And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit, <br />And then she said one or two unprintable things. <br />But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is, <br />She's really all right. I still see her once in a while <br />And she always treats me right. We have a drink <br />And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year <br />Before I see her again, but there she is, <br />Running to fat, but dependable as they come. <br />And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour.<br /><br />Anthony Evan Hecht<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-dover-bitch/
