Let No Charitable Hope

Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am by nature none of these.
I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
The little nourishment I get.
In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.

Poem Analysis & Reflection

Elinor Wylie’s Let No Charitable Hope is a defiant, compact poem that explores the poet’s rejection of illusion and her embrace of gritty realism. From the opening line, “Now let no charitable hope / Confuse my mind with images,” Wylie distances herself from comforting metaphors, casting aside idealized visions of strength (the eagle) or grace (the antelope). She declares, quite plainly, that she is not these things, rejecting both societal expectations and poetic convention in one stroke (Poets.org).

The second stanza tightens the emotional screws, moving into an admission of human and specifically feminine hardship: “I was, being human, born alone; / I am, being woman, hard beset.” These lines convey a fierce awareness of both existential solitude and the gendered burdens placed on women. The metaphor “I live by squeezing from a stone / The little nourishment I get” suggests not victimhood, but tenacity; the speaker survives by extracting sustenance from an unforgiving world, evoking both futility and stubborn endurance (Poetry Foundation).

The final stanza shifts into a cooler, almost sardonic tone. Time, personified as a parade of years wearing “masks outrageous and austere,” passes her by in “single file.” She neither fears these masked years nor fully grants them her approval. Instead, Wylie notes, “none has quite escaped my smile” - a subtle and powerful assertion of agency. The smile is not one of joy, but of wry detachment, perhaps even irony. Life may have its trials, but the speaker remains unbroken, untouched by sentiment, and defiantly self-aware (PoemAnalysis.com).

Ultimately, Let No Charitable Hope is a quiet rebellion - rejecting the romantic tropes of nature and heroism in favor of a hard-earned dignity. Wylie’s poem stands as a portrait of self-reliance, particularly in the context of early 20th-century womanhood. With each quatrain, she carves out a space for honesty over hope, resilience over rhetoric.