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For The Hearts Of Nurses Are Solid Gold, / But Their Heels Are Flat And Their Hands Are Cold, / And Their Voices Lilt With A Lilt That's Falser / Than The Smile Of An Exhibition Waltzer. / Yes, Nurses Can Cure You, Nurses Restore You, / But Nurses Are Bound That They Do Things For You.

-Phyllis McGinley

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For The Hearts Of

Phyllis McGinley

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For The Hearts Of Nurses Are Solid Gold, / But Their Heels Are Flat And Their Hands Are Cold, / And Their Voices Lilt With A Lilt That's Falser / Than The Smile Of An Exhibition Waltzer. / Yes, Nurses Can Cure You, Nurses Restore You, / But Nurses Are Bound That They Do Things For You.

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The Trouble With Gardening Is That Is Does Not Remain An Avocation. It Becomes An Obsession.

Women Like Other Women Fine. The More Feminine She Is, The More Comfortable A Woman Feels With Her Own Sex. It Is Only The Occasional And Therefore Noticeable Adventuress Who Refuses To Make Friends With Us.

Praise Is Warming And Desirable. But It Is An Earned Thing. It Has To Be Deserved, Like A Hug From A Child.

The East Is The Hearthside Of America. Like Any Home, Therefore, It Has The Defects Of Its Virtues. Because It Is A Long-lived-inhouse, It Bursts Its Seams, Is Inconvenient, Needs Constant Refurbishing. And Some Of The Family Resources Have Been Spent. To Attain The Privacy That Grown-up People Find So Desirable, Easterners Live A Harder Life Than People Elsewhere. Today It Is We And Not The Frontiersman Who Must Be Rugged To Survive.

Mere Wealth, I Am Above It, / It Is The Reputation Wide, / The Playwright's Pomp, The Poet's Pride / That Eagerly I Covet.

This Is The Gist Of What I Know: Give Advice And Buy A Foe.

It's Hard / Keeping Up With The Avant-garde.

Children From Ten To Twenty Don't Want To Be Understood. Their Whole Ambition Is To Feel Strange And Alien And Misinterpreted So That They Can Live Austerely In Some Stone Tower Of Adolescence, Their Privacies Unviolated.

I'm A Middle-bracket Person With A Middle-bracket Spouse / And We Live Together Gaily In A Middle-bracket House. / We've A Fair-to-middlin' Family; We Take The Middle View; / So We're Manna Sent From Heaven To Internal Revenue.

Getting Along With Men Isn't What's Truly Important. The Vital Knowledge Is How To Get Along With One Man.

The Wonderful Thing About Saints Is That They Were Human. They Lost Their Tempers, Got Hungry, Scolded God, Were Egotistical Or Impatient In Their Turns, Made Mistakes And Regretted Them. Still They Went On Doggedly Blundering Toward Heaven.

A Lady Is Smarter Than A Gentleman, Maybe, She Can Sew A Fine Seam, She Can Have A Baby, She Can Use Her Intuition Instead Of Her Brain, But She Can't Fold A Paper In A Crowded Train.

Who Could Deny That Privacy Is A Jewel? It Has Always Been The Mark Of Privilege, The Distinguishing Feature Of A Truly Urbane Culture. Out Of The Cave, The Tribal Teepee, The Pueblo, The Community Fortress, Man Emerged To Build Himself A House Of His Own With A Shelter In It For Himself And His Diversions. Every Age Has Seen It So. The Poor Might Have To Huddle Together In Cities For Need's Sake, And The Frontiersman Cling To His Neighbors For The Sake Of Protection. But In Each Civilization, As It Advanced, Those Who Could Afford It Chose The Luxury Of A Withdrawing-place.

Kindness Is A Virtue Neither Modern Nor Urban. One Almost Unlearns It In A City. Towns Have Their Own Beatitude; They Are Not Unfriendly; They Offer A Vast And Solacing Anonymity Or An Equally Vast And Solacing Gregariousness. But One Needs A Neighbor On Whom To Practice Compassion.

O, Merry Is The Optimist, With The Troops Of Courage Leaguing. But A Dour Trend In Any Friend Is Somehow Less Fatiguing.

A Lover Would Find Life Less Broken Apart After A Misguided Love Affair If They Could Feel That They Had Been Sinful Rather Than Foolish.

Rain Is My Lover, My Apple Strudel. / It Haunts My Heels Like A Pedigreed Poodle. / Beyond The Seas Or Across The Nation, / It Follows Me Faithful On Every Vacation.

I Have Read That During The Process Of Canonization The Catholic Church Demands Proof Of Joy In The Candidate, And Although I Have Not Been Able To Track Down Chapter And Verse I Like The Suggestion That Dourness Is Not A Sacred Attribute.

It Is The Leisured, I Have Noticed, Who Rebel The Most At An Interruption Of Routine.

Shunning The Upstart Shower, / The Cold And Cursory Scrub, / I Celebrate The Power / That Lies Within The Tub.

Scratch Any Father, You Find / Someone Chock-full Of Qualms And Romantic Terrors, / Believing Change Is A Threat.

Oh, Princes Thrive On Caviar, The Poor On Whey And Curds, / And Politicians, I Infer, Must Eat Their Windy Words. / It's Crusts That Feed The Virtuous, It's Cake That Comforts Sinners, / But Writers Live On Bread And Praise At Literary Dinners.

The System - The American One, At Least - Is A Vast And Noble Experiment. It Has Been Polestar And Exemplar For Other Nations. But From Kindergarten Until She Graduates From College The Girl Is Treated In It Exactly Like Her Brothers. She Studies The Same Subjects, Becomes Proficient At The Same Sports. Oh, It Is A Magnificent Lore She Learns, Education For The Mind Beyond Anything Jane Austen Or Saint Theresa Or Even Mrs. Pankhurst Ever Dreamed. It Is Truly Utopian. But Utopia Was Never Meant To Exist On This Disheveled Planet.

Gardening Has Compensations Out Of All Proportion To Its Goals. It Is Creation In The Pure Sense.

Frigidity Is Largely Nonsense. It Is This Generation's Catchword, One Only Vaguely Understood And Constantly Misused. Frigid Women Are Few. There Is A Host Of Diffident And Slow-ripening Ones.

This Generation

There Is Satisfaction In Seeing One's Household Prosper; In Being Both Bountiful And Provident.

For Little Boys Are Rancorous When Robbed Of Any Myth, And Spiteful And Cantankerous To All Their Kin And Kith. But Little Girls Can Draw Conclusions And Profit From Their Lost Illusions.

Ah, Snug Lie Those That Slumber Beneath Conviction's Roof. Their Floors Are Sturdy Lumber, Their Windows Weatherproof. But I Sleep Cold Forever And Cold Sleep All My Kind, For I Was Born To Shiver In The Draft From An Open Mind.

Gossip Isn't Scandal And It's Not Merely Malicious. It's Chatter About The Human Race By Lovers Of The Same.

Stir The Eggnog, Lift The Toddy, Happy New Year Everybody.

Ah! Some Love Paris, / And Some Purdue. / But Love Is An Archer With A Low I.q. / A Bold, Bad Bowman, And Innocent Of Pity. / So I'm In Love With / New York City.

To Be A Housewife Is A Difficult, A Wrenching, Sometimes An Ungrateful Job If It Is Looked On Only As A Job. Regarded As A Profession, It Is The Noblest As It Is The Most Ancient Of The Catalogue. Let None Persuade Us Differently Or The World Is Lost Indeed.

God Knows That A Mother Needs Fortitude And Courage And Tolerance And Flexibility And Patience And Firmness And Nearly Every Other Brave Aspect Of The Human Soul. But Because I Happen To Be A Parent Of Almost Fiercely Maternal Nature, I Praise Casualness. It Seems To Me The Rarest Of Virtues. It Is Useful Enough When Children Are Small. It Is Useful To The Point Of Necessity When They Are Adolescents.

Seventy Is Wormwood, Seventy Is Gall But Its Better To Be Seventy, Than Not Alive At All.

Time Is The Thief You Cannot Banish.

Oh, High Is The Price Of Parenthood, And Daughters May Cost You Double. You Dare Not Forget, As You Thought You Could, That Youth Is A Plague And A Trouble.

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Please To Put A Nickel, Please To Put A Dime. How Petitions Trickle In At Christmas Time!

Behind Every Myth Lies A Truth; Beyond Every Legend Is Reality, As Radiant (sometimes As Chilling) As The Story Itself.

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Not Reading Poetry Amounts To A National Pastime Here.

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For The Hearts Of Nurses Are Solid Gold, / But Their Heels Are Flat And Their Hands Are Cold, / And Their Voices Lilt With A Lilt That's Falser / Than The Smile Of An Exhibition Waltzer. / Yes, Nurses Can Cure You, Nurses Restore You, / But Nurses Are Bound That They Do Things For You.

I Sing Connecticut, Her Charms / Of Rivers, Orchards, Blossoming Ridges. / I Sing Her Gardens, Fences, Farms, / Spiders And Midges.

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What In Me Is Pure Conviction Is Simple Prejudice In You.

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Say What You Will, Making Marriage Work Is A Woman's Business. The Institution Was Invented To Do Her Homage; It Was Contrived For Her Protection. Unless She Accepts It As Such --as A Beautiful, Bountiful, But Quite Unequal Association --the Going Will Be Hard Indeed.

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Those Wearing Tolerance For A Label Call Other Views Intolerable.

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Sin Has Always Been An Ugly Word, But It Has Been Made So In A New Sense Over The Last Half-century. It Has Been Made Not Only Ugly But Pass?. People Are No Longer Sinful, They Are Only Immature Or Underprivileged Or Frightened Or, More Particularly, Sick.

In A Successful Marriage, There Is No Such Thing As One's Way. There Is Only The Way Of Both, Only The Bumpy, Dusty, Difficult, But Always Mutual Path.

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The Successful Truck Gardener Can Never Go Out To Dinner In The Summer Or Spend A Week End Away, Because His Conscience Tells Him He Has To Be At Home Eating Up His Corn Or Packaging His Beans For The Freezer.

Sons Do Not Need You. They Are Always Out Of Your Reach, Walking Strange Waters.

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One Applauds The Industry Of Professional Philanthropy. But It Has Its Dangers. After A While The Private Heart Begins To Harden. We Fling Letters Into The Wastebasket, Are Abrupt To Telephoned Solicitations. Charity Withers In The Incessant Gale.

Wherever Conversation's Flowing, / Why Must I Feel It Falls On Me / To Keep Things Going?

A Hobby A Day Keeps The Doldrums Away.

People Are No Longer Sinful, They Are Only Immature Or Underprivileged Or Frightened Or, More Particularly, Sick.

Sisters Are Always Drying Their Hair. Locked Into Rooms, Alone, They Pose At The Mirror, Shoulders Bare, Trying This Way And That Their Hair, Or Fly Importunate Down The Stair To Answer The Telephone.

Women Are Not Men's Equals In Anything Except Responsibility. We Are Not Their Inferiors, Either, Or Even Their Superiors. We Are Quite Simply Different Races.

If Childhood Is Still A State, It Is Now Chiefly A State Of Confusion.

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In Australia, Not Reading Poetry Is The National Pastime.

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Aunts Are Discreet, A Little Shy / By Instinct. They Forbear To Pry.

Say What You Will, Making A Marriage Work Is A Woman's Business.

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