At a Dinner Party

With fruit and flowers the board is decked,
    The wine and laughter flow;
I'll not complain—could one expect
    So dull a world to know?

You look across the fruit and flowers,
    My glance your glances find.—
It is our secret, only ours,
    Since all the world is blind.

Credit

This poem is in the public domain.

Author

Amy Levy

Amy Levy was born in London on November 10, 1861, the second of seven children in a middle-class Jewish family. Levy attended Brighton High School for Girls, a school founded by women’s rights advocates that would be a catalyst for Levy’s outspoken, feminist views. While there, she wrote “Xantippe,” a dramatic monologue from the perspective of Socrates’s wife.

Date Published

01/01/1889