Folly Bergere

Many years ago I thought I knew
A few small things about how women thought;
Such confidence I had was dearly bought
From all the bafflement that I'd lived through.
I thought I had an idea what they'd do,
And what it was, by doing it, they sought;
I fantasized I knew how life was fraught,
And what of what I'd seen was false and true.
You probably expect me now to mock
That old imagination, and to say
That in the gap that's grown from yesterday
I've put that understanding into hock:
And so I have. But still I sympathize
With those naive and too-convenient lies.