A Late Aubade, by Richard Wilbur
A Late Aubade
(or the fantasy of sleeping in)
You could be sitting now in a carrel
Turning some liver-spotted page,
Or rising in an elevator-cage
Toward Ladies’ Apparel.
You could be planting a raucous bed
Of salvia, in rubber gloves,
Or lunching through a screed of someone’s loves
With pitying head.
Or making some unhappy setter
Heel, or listening to a bleak
Lecture on Schoenberg’s serial technique.
Isn’t this better?
Think of all the time you are not
Wasting, and would not care to waste,
Such things, thank God, not being to your taste.
Think what a lot
Of time, by woman’s reckoning,
You’ve saved, and so may spend on this,
You who had rather lie in bed and kiss
Than anything.
It’s almost noon, you say? If so,
Time flies, and I need not rehearse
The rosebuds-theme of centuries of verse.
If you must go,
Wait for a while, then slip downstairs
And bring us up some chilled white wine,
And some blue cheese, and crackers, and some fine
Ruddy-skinned pears.
–Richard Wilbur
It’s splendid & magnificent poem which is written by prominent poet.
Comment by Omid Salehi — October 3, 2008 @ 2:37 am
I first read Wilbur’s poem “A Late Aubade” during my junior year of college, and I loved the rhythym of the poem, word choice and theme immediately. For some reason, this poem has always remained a part of me, regardless of the years or changes in my life — and they have been many. It remains one of the top ten poems that I appreciate the most.
Comment by Patrick Knoll — March 12, 2009 @ 1:52 pm