Poem: A Cooking Egg

Updated May 6, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

A Cooking Egg

   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