Verse Reporting Late Arrival at a Conclusion

Consider a lady gone reckless in love,
     In novels and plays:
You watch her proceed in a drapery of
     A roseate haze.
Acclaimed as a riot, a wow, and a scream,
She flies with her beau to les Alpes Maritimes,
And moves in a mist of a mutual dream
     The rest of her days.

In life, if you’ll listen to one who has been
     Observant of such,
A lady in love is more frequently in
     Decidedly Dutch.
The thorn, so to say, is revealed by the rose.
The best that she gets is a sock in the nose.
These authors and playwrights, I’m forced to suppose,
     Don’t get around much.

Credit

From Enough Rope (Boni & Liveright, 1926) by Dorothy Parker. This poem is in the public domain.