Please help me figure out what this poem means?

Question

"The Burned Child" by Dorothy Parker

Love has had his way with me.
This my heart is torn and maimed
Since he took his play with me.
Cruel well the bow-boy aimed,

Shot, and saw the feathered shaft
Dripping bright and bitter red.
He that shrugged his wings and laughed—
Better had he left me dead.

Sweet, why do you plead me, then,
Who have bled so sore of that?
Could I bear it once again? . . .
Drop a hat, dear, drop a hat!

I just have trouble understanding the last stanza, especially the "drop a hat dear, drop a hat!" line

Kevin S -- thank you, that's so simple. I can't believe I didn't think of that on my own!

Answer 1

"drop of a hat" is an expression meaning "right away". The way it's usually used is when someone says, "I'd do that at the drop of a hat", which is how they often used to start a race (wave a handkerchief, drop a hat...which actually means to raise the hat over your head in one hand, then bring it down sharply, like a flag at a race).

The poem is someone's lament at being shot with Cupid's bow, a love arrow through the heart as it were, saying that it would have been better to be shot dead than shot with love's arrow and have to suffer love...to which the responder says, after all that...test me, just drop a hat and see how fast I'd succumb to love's arrow again.

Answer 2

People often use strange lines such as "Drop a hat" to fill in poetry. But really, this is obviously a poem about someone who fell in love and their heart was ripped apart. The drop a hat could mean as in respects to the supposedly 'dead' heart.