Wild Oats
Wild Oats - meaning Summary
Love, Choices, and Remembrance
The speaker recalls choosing a quieter, bespectacled partner over a more outwardly attractive woman and recounts a seven-year, episodic relationship. He describes devotion through letters, a ring given and returned, meetings in various cities, and a tentative intimacy that ultimately fails because of his selfishness and boredom. The poem ends with lingering, ambivalent keepsakes: two photographs of the other woman preserved as unlucky charms and reminders of youthful choices.
Read Complete AnalysesAbout twenty years ago Two girls came in where I worked - A bosomy English rose And her friend in specs I could talk to. Faces in those days sparked The whole shooting-match off, and I doubt If ever one had like hers: But it was the friend I took out, And in seven years after that Wrote over four hundred letters, Gave a ten-guinea ring I got back in the end, and met At numerous cathedral cities Unknown to the clergy. I believe I met beautiful twice. She was trying Both times (so I thought) not to laugh. Parting, after about five Rehearsals, was an agreement That I was too selfish, withdrawn And easily bored to love. Well, useful to get that learnt, In my wallet are still two snaps, Of bosomy rose with fur gloves on. Unlucky charms, perhaps.
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