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"Lament For Lost Lodging"
Do you remember an inn, Miranda?
—From “Tarentella,” by Hilaire Belloc
Yes, do you remember an inn,
Miranda,
Where chairs rocked, creaking,
On the long veranda,
Where beds were elderly
To match the plumbing,
But the manager still smiled at our coming?
Far from the highway where the traffic muttered,
It was clapboard white,
It was greenly shuttered.
There peace descended
When night began,
And we paid by American plan.
Remember the lobster redder than the wine,
The breakfast dining room
That closed at nine,
The wavy mirrors
In the first-floor Women's,
The waitresses all from Smith or Simmons?
And the crickets loud
But the busboys louder,
And the reek of the leek
In the weekly chowder,
And the carefree luggage
That porters brought in,
And the baths you could launch a yacht in?
Nevermore, Miranda, nevermore.
Only the faceless,
Duplicated door
Of a thousand motels
From Taos to Truro,
With the television built in the built-in bureau.
Only the wallpaper, self-assertive,
And the dusty coming,
And the going, furtive,
And the Howard Johnson's
For a meal, en masse,
And the clink of the drink
In the toothbrush glass.
Only the guests, neither gentlemen nor ladies
But Monsieur the Buick
Or Madame Mercedes,
And the fee in advance,
And the sleeping pill
For the traffic
Roaring at the sill.
Let me fly to an Inn, like a sword to its scabbard,
Where the crickets cry
And the walls are clapboard.
Till I find a rocker
On a long veranda,
I’ll motor no more, Miranda.
—Phyllis McGinley
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