Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on Little Girls at Christmastime)

“The knowingness of little girls,
Is hidden underneath their curls.
 
“Obligingly, since parents fancy
The season's tinsel necromancy,
They take some pains to make pretense
Of duped and eager innocence.
 
“Agnostics born but Bernhardts bred,
They hang the stocking by the bed,
Make plans, and pleasure their begetters
By writing Santa lengthy letters.
Only too well aware the fruit
Is shinier plunder, richer loot.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978), “What Every Woman Knows,” in Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades, With Seventy New Poems (1961)