In Sara Teasdale’s “The Old Maid,” a young woman riding a Broadway streetcar sees an older unmarried woman and recognizes her as a possible version of herself. The resemblance is uncanny—same hair color, similar eyes—but the other woman’s hair is dull, her eyes have never shone with love, and her body and soul seem starved and frozen. The speaker is shaken by the thought that she could end up unloved and empty. But then she feels her lover turn from the older woman back to her, and his gaze feels like a kind of protection. It cannot erase the fear entirely, but it gives her a defiant hope that love will keep her from that fate. The mood is intimate and uneasy, caught between dread of loneliness and the comfort of being chosen.
The Old Maid — Summary
I SAW her in a Broadway car, The woman I might grow to be; I felt my lover look at her And then turn suddenly to me.
Her hair was dull and drew no light And yet its color was as mine; Her eyes were strangely like my eyes Tho' love had never made them shine.
Her body was a thing grown thin, Hungry for love that never came; Her soul was frozen in the dark Unwarmed forever by love's flame.
I felt my lover look at her And then turn suddenly to me,-- His eyes were magic to defy The woman I shall never be.