| When I was just a tiny, blue-ginghamed, pig-tailed miss,
My young affections centered on such a day as This. I fed my soul on flowery verse and valentine-y frills, And bandy-legged Cupids gave me most delightful thrills. But I've outgrown such childishness___no frills and thrills in mine ! I want a million dollars to be my Valentine. For these were fleeting fancies, and with my tender teens My tastes grew more expensive, though I kept within my means. I still was keen on frills and thrills, but with my lengthened frocks I wanted the hand-painted kind, all done up in a box. But even for these dear delights today I do not pine: I want a million dollars to be my Valentine. And in my early twenties I, yet mindful of the day, Demanded tokens in a still more mercenary way. A five-pound box of chocolates would really give me thrills. Or Beauties at a dollar per, in florist's paper frills. But these no longer stir my blood to ecstasy divine: I want a million dollars to be my Valentine. Romance is dead in me today, and I am thirty-three. No loves and doves, no hearts and darts, no lacy frills for me! No five-pound box of chocolates, no roses rare and red___ What little heart I had has formed a merger with my head. The only thing I think of that would thrill me through And satisfy my yearnings is___a copper mine or two! O Postman, bring a railroad, or a trans-Atlantic line, Or just a million dollars, to be my Valentine! __Ester M. (Clark) Hill. |
The Call of Kansas and Other Poems
Esther M. (Clark) Hill
(Cedar Rapids: Torch Press. __)
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