A Poem

[cmt2779]

I was flipping through an old book of poetry and found this one. I remember reading it as a child and never questioning it, but now...

To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train
by Frances Cornford

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
  Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman, whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk thorugh the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
  And shivering-sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
  Missing so much and so much?

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I like the message in the image of the gloves she wears about not shielding ourselves from nature, from the beauty of the world around us, but instead allowing ourselves to experience it fully.

But I'm a little disturbed by the third line of the poem, which reads like a throwaway line, almost: "O fat white woman, whom nobody loves." Why is it important that she's fat? Or white? Why is it assumed that nobody loves her? It just seems kind of mean.

This site has some context for the poem and also includes a couple of parodies that I quite like.