The Homebody by Dorothy Parker
There still are kindly things for me to know, Who am afraid to dream, afraid to feel- This little chair of scrubbed and sturdy deal, This easy book, this fire, sedate and slow. And I shall stay with them, nor cry the woe Of wounds across my breast that do not heal; Nor wish that Beauty drew a duller steel, Since I am sworn to meet her as a foe.
It may be, when the devil's own time is done, That I shall hear the dropping of the rain At midnight, and lie quiet in my bed; Or stretch and straighten to the yellow sun; Or face the turning tree, and have no pain; So shall I learn at last my heart is dead.
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