A Cooking Egg

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En l'an trentiesme de mon aage

Que toutes mes hontes j'ay beues...

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Pipit sat upright in her chair

Some distance from where I was a sitting;

Views of the Oxford Colleges

Lay on the table, with the knitting.

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Daguerreotypes and silhouettes,

Her grandfather and great great aunts,

Supported on the mantelpiece 

An invitation to the Dance.

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.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

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I shall not want Honour in Heaven

For I shall meet Sir Phillip Sydney

And have talk with Coriolanus

And other heroes of that kidney.

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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.

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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.

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I shall not want Pipit in Heaven:

Madame Blavatsky will instruct me

In the Seven Sacred Trances;

Piccarda de Donati will conduct me.

 

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

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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;

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Where are the eagles and the trumpets?

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Buried beneath some snow-deep Alps.

Over buttered scones and crumpets

Weeping, weeping multitudes

Droop in a hundred A.B.C.'s

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["ABC's" signifies endemic teashops, found in all parts of

London. The initials signify "Aerated Bread Company,

Limited." - Project Gutenberg Editor's replacement of

original footnote]