Sign in  |  Register

The New Criterion

The New Criterion is probably more consistently worth reading than any other magazine in English.
- The Times Literary Supplement
Subscribe Now and get unlimited access

Poems

February 1996

Emily's courtship

by Robert McDowell

 

The visitor stands at the grave in knee-high snow.
He’s been calling your house since 1962
Asking for you.

Is he a distant or close relation to
That man in Baltimore who annually visits Poe?
Certainly you would know.

And if this man who calls you should break through,
What Loneliness, Time, and Pain must he endure
At your father’s door?

Brushing aside that meddling sister of yours
He calls upstairs, “Emily, my darling, my dear,
There is nothing to fear!”

Don’t greet him in the frills and curls you acquired late,
Long after the Romantics claimed you,
But come down as you

Always were, your hair tucked in a tight bun,
Your limbs loose in a drab, light summer dress
The color of afternoon sun,

The armpits and a flare up the back darkened with sweat
(For you have been sweeping all morning), your ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase

Subscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions)

Subscribe to TNC (Online only)

Purchase article credit and clip this article

If you already have an account login first

Robert McDowell


more from this author

This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 14 February 1996, on page 36

Copyright © 2009 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Emily-s-courtship-3660
rate this article for your user profile

E-mail to friend


The New Criterion

By the author

You might also enjoy

Most popular

view more >

download
first delivery

The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices

New from The New Criterion:
40 page special issue
on our conference

"Free speech in
an age of Jihad"

Events

November 09 2009

YOUNG FRIENDS: Tour of an important contemporary art collection


November 24 2009

OPEN EVENT: Laura Jacobs reading


December 02 2009

Friends Event: The Swallow Anthology Reading

Webcasts

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 4
"The Criminalization of Making Money" by Lionel Shriver, Recorded 9/25/09


New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 3
"The State and the Threat to Democracy" by Jeremy Black and "The Paradox of the Intellectual and the Future of Capitalism" by Tim Congdon, Recorded on 9/25/2009


New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 2
"Nice 'N' Easy: The Age of Micro Tyranny" by Mark Steyn, Recorded on 9/25/2009

Weblog