Still to Be Neat

On the literal level, “Still to Be Neat” is a poem about lust. The speaker is a man talking about this woman whom he wants to have sex with. The setting of the poem is back in the old days, during a ball. In the first stanza the speaker tells the reader about how she is all dressed up and ready to go to this ball. The woman is powdered and perfumed as if she were going out somewhere. It is in the second stanza that we see the speaker is more attracted to her natural looks. He is more attracted to her simplicity than he is when she has make-up and fancy clothing on. He states, “give me a look, give me a face/ that makes simplicity a grace;/ robes loosely flowing, hair as free.” He obviously would rather have this woman in her natural state, and is more attracted to her in this state than when she putting on a face for other people. This poem could be interpreted not only as a poem about lust but also a poem about pretending to be someone you are not when you are in the public eye. The speaker could be admiring the women for who she is, yet in the public eye she turns into someone he doesn’t even know.

The ending rhyme scheme in the poem is very interesting. In the first stanza, the first two lines don’t rhyme, the second two lines rhyme with each other, as do the final two lines in the stanza. However, when one looks at the second stanza it is apparent that the first two lines rhyme, as do the second two lines and the third two lines. These ending rhymes in the second stanza seem to make the poem flow in a better, more organized way. The poet may be trying to make the point that being natural is better than forcing yourself to be someone your not.

The alliteration in the stanzas reveals much about the poem as well. In the first stanza it is apparent that there is a lot of blatant alliteration. Examples of this include powdered, perfumed, and presumed. In the second stanza, it becomes harder to find such obvious alliteration. Overall the second stanza feels freer, there are no restraints holding it back, other than the end rhymes. The alliteration in the first stanza also keeps the view that the setting is in a ballroom or public affair. The words used throughout the alliteration are also bigger words. Instead of saying smelled good the poet uses the word perfumed, and instead of using assume the word presumed was used. This just adds to the theory that this poem is indeed about public face vs. private self.

Repetition in the poem appears to be important yet as a reader I can’t quite figure out why. Several times in the poem phrases such as “still to be” and “give me” repeat themselves for no real reason. The only reason that the poet may have wanted to use repetition is to give it more of a lullaby sound, which makes the poem, flow better, and keeps it more upbeat. Since the poem may have real depth and meaning to it, depending on how you read it, the poet may have used this lullaby effect to keep the poem upbeat for the reader rather than depressing. If one wanted to go more in depth, the poet uses the upbeat nature of the poem to prove his point. Rather than saying what he wants to say straight out, he flowers up the language and makes it acceptable for the “public.” This would prove his point about public and private even further.