I don’t aspire to be a person of wealth and leisure,
Such as one sees on the screen.
With lackeys in livery ready to do my pleasure
With a skilled and attentive mien;
Gallant gay domestics and all the rest of it
Ain’t anything in my line —
But if somebody came now and again and cleaned the place up a bit
It would be fine.
I don’t mind turning on my own bath-water,
Though in the best circles of course it isn’t done;
I can run a house and arrange flowers, and take the place of a daughter,
I can also use the phone.
Sitting about all day being a perfect lady
Is not written in my fate —
But if someone else once in a way got a meal ready
It would be great.
I always do my own hair and tie my own shoe-laces,
I should really rather hate to have a maid;
Footmen, I always think, have such supercilious faces,
And butlers simply make me afraid.
I don’t want a housemaid, either under or upper’
If I did, I couldn’t pay the price —
But if somebody once in a blue moon washed up after supper
It would be nice. . . .
(Cicely Fox Smith)
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Based on Topics: Faces Poems, Place Poems, Flowers Poems, Money & Wealth Poems, Perfection Poems, Daughters Poems, Leisure Poems, Telephones PoemsBased on Keywords: lackeys, supercilious, housemaid, footmen, butlers, domestics