A Nonsense Song by Stephen Vincent Benét

ROSEMARY, Rosemary, let down your hair!
The cow's in the hammock, the crow's in the chair!
I was making you songs out of sawdust and silk,
But they came in to call and they spilt them like milk.

The cat's in the coffee, the wind's in the east,
He screams like a peacock and whines like a priest
And the saw of his voice makes my blood turn to mice
So let down your long hair and shut off his advice!

Pluck out the thin hairpins and let the waves stream,
Brown-gold as brook-waters that dance through a dream,
Gentle-curié as young cloudlings, sweet-fragrant as bay
Till it takes all the fierceness of living away.

Oh, when you are with me, my heart is white steel.
But the bat's in the belfry, the mold's in the meal,
And I think I hear skeletons climbing the stair!
Rosemary, Rosemary, let down your bright hair!

— 'phfina's thoughts:

I remember hearing this when I was a little child, I think, or somehow this poem pulls to me in that way. I stumbled upon it last weekend? two weekends ago? and immediately when I read it, I started reciting it out loud in my sing-songy reciting voice:

"Rosemary, Rosemary let down your hair!"

... and I couldn't help but to smile as I sang this silly song.

But, really, this song isn't so silly: it's sweet, and it's, yes: sad. The world around us — around me — is this crazy world where "the cow's in the hammock, the crow's in the chair!" but what is the image called to us in this crazy-life? It's Rosemary, my beloved Rosemary [the poet's wife], combing her hair in the morning, and putting up in a severe bun, and Stephen cries out: "Rosemary, Rosemary, please let down your hair!"

This is so New England, and yes, Stephen's from Pennsylvania, so I'll change that to 'Colonial.' Yeah! Colonial. There's something so ... 13 colonies in this poem, how the Brits came over to the New World, and wrested it from the natives, and wrested it from the French, and wrested it from anything and everything, including itself, so the 'New' England took on a character of the 'Old' England that they fled, and it wasn't even the Old England, it was what they thought they fled from Old England: that cold, unwelcoming, desolate place that the Brits entirely aren't! (I've met a few, and it's hard to find more warm, welcoming, bright, friendly people that the Brits I've met.) But this is what the colonists fled, and this is what they brought with them.

Funny how the thing we are running away from is the thing that is waiting for us when we arrive at our haven.

And so these hardy colonists carved out the land from the land and made it this prosperous, grey, heartless place. And so we have this poetry, from Benét and Frost and Wallace Stevens and other New Englanders and Colonists, so precise, so pragmatic, and so filled with longing for love and affection and something they could so easily have if they'd just do the one thing they cannot: put down the plow of their toil and dare, just dare, to open their hearts.

So.

So there's me, a New Englander, in exile in the South (but in the safe northern part of the South) (but no place is safe, is it, 'phfina?), reading this poem. And thinking about it and the images it calls forth.

And, I, well, is my hair something for my spouse to cry out this line? Well, not really. It's not full-bodied like my sisters' ... and it's not ratty, not really, it's just this straight, jet black "thing" that's this mess in the morning, and after that I don't really think about it until I'm washing the coffee smell out of it after I work out.

I really don't think about hair, except when I'm admiring it or when I'm missing it. Like, one time when I was still in high school, I visited my sister in Vermont, and I was shocked when I saw her because she was all Sinéad, and then she told me she had donated her hair for women who had lost their hair through cancer, and my approbation (had she gone skin-head?) turned to admiration. And I thought: how brave! how giving! how selfless!

Funny that, 'cause now her mom's a blond. Yes, her mom has breast cancer, and the chemo took her hair, and now she's on radiation therapy.

I wonder if I could ever do that: just cut off all my hair. And I don't see myself as vain, but here I am thinking about this little nothing while people are dying, .. and I don't see myself as ... well, I grew up where compliments weren't given, even if they were earned. I did tell you I'm from New England, didn't I? I mean, everything I did to try to make some kind of impression on my parents, what I did at school, what I did at home? But everybody in my family's a Mensan, (really) published authors with national and international accolades, teachers, professors, philosophers, for God's sake, so that makes me an also-ran, I guess, you know?

So I would get, if I were lucky, just a nod from a parent, or a slight smile, but "I love you"? or "You look nice today"? or "Good job!"? Those things weren't said. No, it was more like: "..." No, I'm not going to write it; it's too painful, even now: my family is very, very smart, and very, very critical. And I know they want the best from me, and they tried to offer their constructive criticism gently, not bluntly, ... most of the time, but I never felt I was good enough, you know? So I never saw myself as pretty, or loved even, by my parents. I mean, I know they did, and, ... but growing up was rather austere — rather ... not cold, but cool, you know? very, very cool and distant — and, thinking back to my childhood, it was rather hard, and here I am now, and I won't do this thing that my sister did.

Even though I can't really see somebody quoting this poem to me.

So, singing this silly song to myself softly, I smile, but it's a wistful smile, as I see the lover call to the beloved, seeing her as beautiful, as perfect, and hearing the longing in the voice, and then my smile disappears and I have to wipe away my tears.

You know what I've been reading? Salinger and Sartre. And I wonder: what if they are right? What if they are right, and now is the only thing we have, and it's all vanity?

"Why is Violet crying? I just said to her to look how hard it's raining outside and she runs to the bathroom!"

Yes, it's raining hard outside, and I hear skeletons climbing the stairs...

... and now is all we have ...

So, Rosemary, Rosemary, let down your hair.