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 ¡®twere a Barbary corsair¡¯s?
   (That is, if he¡¯d let it show!)

When he finishes refection,
   Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, 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 district damnations,
   One sure, if another fails;
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 grey 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 woeful 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!