Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Freeds Podcast Network.

I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by Charlotte Mew, an English poet who lived from 1869 to 1928.

Thomas Hardy, who you heard from earlier this week, called her the best woman poet of her day.

And Virginia Woolf said that she was, quote,

very good and interesting and quite unlike anyone else.

The poem that I'm going to read today is called,

no, I don't speak French, and so I'll probably butcher this,

but Acqua Bondir.

Acqua Bondier.

It goes like this.

17 years ago, you said something that sounded like, goodbye. And everybody thinks that you were dead, but I.

So I, as I grow stiff and cold to this and that say goodbye too,

and everybody sees that I am old but you.

And one fine morning, in a sunny lane,

some boy and girl will meet and kiss

and swear that nobody can love their way again.

While over there, you will have smiled.

I shall have tossed your hair. This poem is divided into three stanzas which have essentially the same form until the final stanza.

So there's three lines plus a very short fourth line in each stanza.

But then the final line adds this, you will have smiled.

I shall have tossed your hair.

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