It's funny how people can read this poem ENTIRELY wrong.
For instance: The tone is very ironical. The rich mistress gains the opposite effect from the pearls to the one she intends. The speaker is fully aware that the task she performs everyday for her mistress defeats its purpose. During the day, the pearls absorb her body odour. The mistress is beautiful and probably doesn’t need to wear the warmed up pearls. Men who dance with the mistress get the maid’s ‘persistent scent’ or body odour from the pearls and feel confused. The mysterious scent of the maid puzzles them and obviously puts them off relating to the beautiful lady who believes she can seduce them with her pearls. Unknown to the mistress, she is lonely due to the consequences of bidding her servant to warm her pearls. Thus the overall tone of the poem is very ironical. Another tone is evident in the last line. The tone of the maid in the final line is one of anger as she burns with hidden feelings.
Even more LOLarity HERE.
When my students ask if you can miss the point of poetry, I point them to that. Because this is the poem:
Warming Her Pearls
Carol Ann Duffy
Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
Bids me wear them, warm then, until evening
When I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them
Round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,
Resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
Or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
Whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
Each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.
She's beautiful. I dream about her
In my attic bed; picture her dancing
With tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent
Beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.
I dust her shoulders with a rabbit's foot,
Watch the soft blush seep through her skin
Like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass
My red lips part as though I want to speak.
Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see
Her every movement in my head... Undressing,
Taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching
For the case, slipping naked into bed, the way
She always does... And I lie here awake,
Knowing the pearls are cooling even now
In the room where my mistress sleeps. All night
I feel their absence and I burn.
Even more LOLarity HERE.
When my students ask if you can miss the point of poetry, I point them to that. Because this is the poem:
Warming Her Pearls
Carol Ann Duffy
Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
Bids me wear them, warm then, until evening
When I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them
Round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,
Resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
Or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
Whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
Each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.
She's beautiful. I dream about her
In my attic bed; picture her dancing
With tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent
Beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.
I dust her shoulders with a rabbit's foot,
Watch the soft blush seep through her skin
Like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass
My red lips part as though I want to speak.
Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see
Her every movement in my head... Undressing,
Taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching
For the case, slipping naked into bed, the way
She always does... And I lie here awake,
Knowing the pearls are cooling even now
In the room where my mistress sleeps. All night
I feel their absence and I burn.