Poetry · Chapter
Girl of Fifteen explained
The speaker observes a fifteen-year-old girl passing by each morning, feeling a mix of admiration and shame due to the age gap.
What happens
The speaker observes a fifteen-year-old girl passing by each morning, feeling a mix of admiration and shame due to the age gap. The girl's youth momentarily lifts the weight of the speaker's forty years, evoking a bittersweet reflection on time and longing.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Beauty
The speaker's admiration for the girl's beauty and youth, and the emotional response it evokes, centers on themes of love and aesthetic appreciation.
Death and Mortality
The contrast between the girl's fifteen years and the speaker's forty summers and winters highlights the passage of time and the awareness of aging and mortality.
Key passages
“Girl of fifteen, I see you each morning from my window As you pass on your way to school. I do more than see, I watch you. I furtively draw the curtain aside. And my heart leaps through my eyes And follows you down the street; Leaving me behind, half-hid And wholly ashamed.”
Each morning, I secretly watch a fifteen-year-old girl walk to school, my heart yearning to follow her while I remain hidden and embarrassed.
The speaker confesses his covert observation and the emotional turmoil it causes.
“What holds me back, Half-hid behind the curtains and wholly ashamed, But my forty years beyond your fifteen?”
The only thing stopping me is the age gap—my forty years compared to your fifteen.
The speaker identifies his age as the source of his shame and restraint.
“Girl of fifteen, as you pass There passes, too, a lightning flash of time In which you lift those forty summers off my head, And take those forty winters out of my heart.”
When you walk by, it feels like a brief moment where your youth relieves me of the burden of my forty years.
The girl's presence momentarily alleviates the speaker's sense of aging and sorrow.