To a Young Girl at a Window
by Margaret Widdemer
The Poor Old Soul plods down the street,
Contented, and forgetting
How Youth was wild, and Spring was wild
And how her life is setting;
And you lean out to watch her there,
And pity, nor remember,
That Youth is hard, and Life is hard,
And quiet is December.
About This Poem
Margaret Widdemer often wrote in traditional poetic forms, and many of her poems explore the social issues of the early twentieth century. She first received widespread attention with the publication of her poem “The Factories,” which tackled the subject of child labor.
Margaret Widdemer was born in 1884 in Pennsylvania. A poet and novelist, she won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1919 for her collection The Old Road to Paradise (Henry Holt and Company, 1918). She served as vice president of the Poetry Society of America and was featured on the radio series Do You Want to Write? Widdemer lived in New York City until her death in 1978.
