The Homebody [Russian translation]

There still are kindly things for me to know,

Who am afraid to dream, afraid to feel-

This little chair of scrubbed and sturdy deal,

This easy book, this fire, sedate and slow.

And I shall stay with them, nor cry the woe

Of wounds across my breast that do not heal;

Nor wish that Beauty drew a duller steel,

Since I am sworn to meet her as a foe.

It may be, when the devil's own time is done,

That I shall hear the dropping of the rain

At midnight, and lie quiet in my bed;

Or stretch and straighten to the yellow sun;

Or face the turning tree, and have no pain;

So shall I learn at last my heart is dead.

• Artist:Dorothy Parker