classic poetry
A Cooking Egg   by T. S. Eliot
    En l'an trentiesme de mon aage
  Que toutes mes hontes j'ay beucs ...
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

 
Poetry Main Page Poet's Main Page Top of this Page Home