A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty

Ogden Nash

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman'?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?

Comments : Turning thirty was a frightening experience. Very much like Miranda, I woke up and checked the mirror next morning fully expecting to find an old, shrivelled woman. Friends all around me who have turned thirty have displayed similar reluctance to crossover into the threshold of 'old and greying'. Which is why I loved this poem of Nash, which displays none of his trademark sarcasm, just plain sweet kindness which the newly minted thirty-year old requires. And just as Nash says, is age really that relevant?
- By Anita