Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) wrote essays, poems, reviews—nearly anything that paid. But she was most of all a wit, a “wisecracker” (in her own estimation) of the kind that America seemed to produce as public figures only during her generation: literary, popular, caustic, punning, and often cruel. In “Now at Liberty,” she puts the common tropes of old lovelorn poetry: the pale lover departed, the heart broken, the world gone tragic. And in eight-line tetrameter stanzas, she plays against those hackneyed (and now socially dated) tropes her parenthetical observations that nevertheless a girl wants to have fun.

Now at Liberty
by Dorothy Parker

Little white love, your way you’ve taken;
    Now I am left alone, alone.
Little white love, my heart’s forsaken.
    (Whom shall I get by telephone?)
Well do I know there’s no returning;
    Once you go out, it’s done, it’s done.
All of my days are gray with yearning.
    (Nevertheless, a girl needs fun.)

Little white love, perplexed and weary,
    Sadly your banner fluttered down.
Sullen the days, and dreary, dreary.
    (Which of the boys is still in town?)
Radiant and sure, you came a-flying;
    Puzzled, you left on lagging feet.
Slow in my breast, my heart is dying.
    (Nevertheless, a girl must eat.)

Little white love, I hailed you gladly;
    Now I must wave you out of sight.
Ah, but you used me badly, badly.
    (Who’d like to take me out tonight?)
All of the blundering words I’ve spoken,
    Little white love, forgive, forgive.
Once you went out, my heart fell, broken.
    (Nevertheless, a girl must live.)