Explore "Vain and Careless" by Robert Graves on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Lady, lovely lady,
Careless and gay!
Once when a beggar called / She gave her child away.
The beggar took the baby, / Wrapped it in a shawl, / "Bring her back," the lady said, / "Next time you call."
Hard by lived a vain man, / So vain and so proud, / He walked on stilts / To be seen by the crowd.
Up above the chimney pots, / Tall as a mast, / And all the people ran about / Shouting till he passed.
"A splendid match surely," / Neighbours saw it plain, / "Although she is so careless, / Although he is so vain."
But the lady played bobcherry, / Did not see or care, / As the vain man went by her / Aloft in the air.
This gentle-born couple / Lived and died apart. / Water will not mix with oil, / Nor vain with careless heart.