<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=472483" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>My Aunt</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! <br>Long years have o’er her flown;<br>Yet still she strains the aching clasp<br>That binds her virgin zone;<br>I know it hurts her,—­though she looks<br>As cheerful as she can;<br>Her waist is ampler than her life,<br>For life is but a span.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! <br>Her hair is almost gray;<br>Why will she train that winter curl<br>In such a spring-like way? <br>How can she lay her glasses down,<br>And say she reads as well,<br>When through a double convex lens<br>She just makes out to spell?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her father—­grandpapa I forgive<br>This erring lip its smiles—­<br>Vowed she should make the finest girl<br>Within a hundred miles;<br>He sent her to a stylish school;<br>’T was in her thirteenth June;<br>And with her, as the rules required,<br>“Two towels and a spoon.”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They braced my aunt against a board,<br>To make her straight and tall;<br>They laced her up, they starved her down,<br>To make her light and small;<br>They pinched her feet, they singed her hair,<br>They screwed it up with pins;—­<br>Oh never mortal suffered more<br>In penance for her sins.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So, when my precious aunt was done,<br>My grandsire brought her back;<br>(By daylight, lest some rabid youth<br>Might follow on the track <br>“Ah!” said my grandsire, as he shook<br>Some powder in his pan,<br>“What could this lovely creature do<br>Against a desperate man!”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche,<br>Nor bandit cavalcade,<br>Tore from the trembling father’s arms<br>His all-accomplished maid. <br>For her how happy had it been<br>And Heaven had spared to me<br>To see one sad, ungathered rose<br>On my ancestral tree.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Oliver+Wendell+Holmes">Oliver Wendell Holmes</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=472483" data-title="My Aunt de Oliver Wendell Holmes" data-description="My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! Long years have o’er her flown; Yet still she strains the aching clasp That binds her virgin zone; I know it hurts her,—­though she looks As cheerful as she can; Her waist is ampler than her life,..."></div> </div> </div>

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