Poetry Archives

En l’an trentiesme do mon aage
    Que toutes mes hontes j’ay beues…


Pipit sate upright in her chair
     Some distance from where I was sitting;
Views of the Oxford Colleges 
     Lay on the table, with the knitting.

Daguerreotypes and silhouettes,
     Her grandfather and great great aunts,
Supported on the mantelpiece
     An Invitation to the Dance.

     . . . . .

I shall not want Honour in Heaven
     For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney
And have talk with Coriolanus
     And other heroes of that kidney.

I shall not want Capital in Heaven
     For I shall meet Sir Alfred Mond.
We two shall lie together, lapt
     In a five per cent. Exchequer Bond.

I shall not want Society in Heaven,
     Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride;
Her anecdotes will be more amusing
     Than Pipit’s experience could provide.

I shall not want Pipit in Heaven:
     Madame Blavatsky will instruct me
In the Seven Sacred Trances;
     Piccarda de Donati will conduct me.

     . . . . .

But where is the penny world I bought
     To eat with Pipit behind the screen?
The red-eyed scavengers are creeping
     From Kentish Town and Golder’s Green;

Where are the eagles and the trumpets?

     Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps.
Over buttered scones and crumpets
     Weeping, weeping multitudes
Droop in a hundred A.B.C.’s