Read "A Maiden To Her Mirror" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
He said he loved me! Then he called my hair / Silk threads wherewith sly Cupid strings his bow, / My cheek a rose leaf fallen on new snow; / And swore my round, full throat would bring despair / To Venus or to Psyche.
Time and care / Will fade these locks; the merry god, I trow, / Uses no grizzled cords upon his bow. / How will it be when I, no longer fair, / Plead for his kiss with cheeks whence long ago / The early snowflakes melted quite away, / The rose leaf died -- and in whose sallow clay / Lie the deep sunken tracks of life's gaunt crow?
When this full throat shall wattle fold on fold, / Like some ripe peach left drying on a wall, / Or like a spent accordion, when all / Its music has exhaled -- will love grow cold?