My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt!
Long years have oââ?¬â?¢er her flown;
Yet still she strains the aching clasp
That binds her virgin zone;
I know it hurts her,ââ?¬â?à?Âthough she looks
As cheerful as she can;
Her waist is ampler than her life,
For life is but a span.
My aunt! my poor deluded aunt!
Her hair is almost gray;
Why will she train that winter curl
In such a spring-like way?
How can she lay her glasses down,
And say she reads as well,
When through a double convex lens
She just makes out to spell?
Her fatherââ?¬â?à?Âgrandpapa I forgive
This erring lip its smilesââ?¬â?à?Â
Vowed she should make the finest girl
Within a hundred miles;
He sent her to a stylish school;
ââ?¬â?¢T was in her thirteenth June;
And with her, as the rules required,
ââ?¬Å?Two towels and a spoon.ââ?¬Â
They braced my aunt against a board,
To make her straight and tall;
They laced her up, they starved her down,
To make her light and small;
They pinched her feet, they singed her hair,
They screwed it up with pins;ââ?¬â?à?Â
Oh never mortal suffered more
In penance for her sins.
So, when my precious aunt was done,
My grandsire brought her back;
(By daylight, lest some rabid youth
Might follow on the track
ââ?¬Å?Ah!ââ?¬Â said my grandsire, as he shook
Some powder in his pan,
ââ?¬Å?What could this lovely creature do
Against a desperate man!ââ?¬Â
Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche,
Nor bandit cavalcade,
Tore from the trembling fatherââ?¬â?¢s arms
His all-accomplished maid.
For her how happy had it been
And Heaven had spared to me
To see one sad, ungathered rose
On my ancestral tree.
My Aunt
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
Poem topics: girl, happy, heaven, june, light, never, poor, rose, sad, school, spring, tree, winter, dear, long, small, forgive, precious, straight, creature, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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Write your comment about My Aunt poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Carmen Aurora: I love this and I think its context is very heart-breaking and very very happy and it would make any kind of aunt to go into tears after hearing this heart-warming poem.
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