  GR-R-R—there go, my heart’s abhorrence! Water your damned flower-pots, do! If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God’s blood, would not mine kill you! What! your myrtle-bush wants trimming? Oh, that rose has prior claims— Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? Hell dry you up with its flames! At the meal we sit together: Salve tibi! I must hear Wise talk of the kind of weather, Sort of season, time of year; Not a plenteous cork-crop; scarcely Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt: What’s the Latin name for “parsley”? What’s the Greek name for swine’s snout? Whew! we’ll have our platter burnished, Laid with care on our own shelf; With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished, And a goblet for ourself, Rinsed like something sacrificial Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps Marked with L for our initial! (He-he! There his lily snaps!) Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores Squats outside the convent bank With Sanchicha, telling stories, Steeping tresses in the tank, Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, Can’t I see his dead eye glow Bright as ’t were a Barbary corsair’s? (That is, if he’d let it show!) When he finishes refection, Knife and fork he never lays Crosswise, to my recollection, As do I, in Jesu’s praise. I the Trinity illustrate, Drinking watered orange pulp— In three sips the Arian frustrate, While he drains his at one gulp. Oh, those melons! If he’s able, We’re to have a feast, so nice! One goes to the abbot’s table, All of us get each a slice. How go on your flowers? None double? Not one fruit-sort can you spy? Strange! And I, too, at such trouble Keep them close-nipped on the sly! There’s a great text in Galatians, Once you trip on it, entails Twenty-nine distinct damnations, If I trip him just a-dying, Sure of heaven as sure can be, Spin him round and send him flying Off to hell, a Manichee? Or, my scrofulous French novel On gray paper, with blunt type! Simply glance at it, you grovel Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe. If I double down its pages At the woful sixteenth print, When he gathers his greengages, Ope a sieve and slip it in’t? Or, there’s Satan! One might venture Pledge one’s soul to him, yet leave Such a flaw in the indenture As he’d miss till, past retrieve, Blasted lay that rose-acacia We’re so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine.... ’St, there’s Vespers! Plena gratia, Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r—you swine! Robert Browning. |
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