OLD King Ptolemy
Climbed the stair
Into the attic
Of Anywhere.
Old King Ptolemy
Sulked to bed;
Maids cleared up his toys—
“Broken,” they said.
“The King’s in a temper,
The King’s in a pet,”
Wriggling their necks like geese—
“Oh, what a fret!”
The Struwwelpeter
Round-eyed Sun,
Rocked on his rocking-horse
Half in fun,—
Rocked on the landing,
Rocked on the stair:
“Babylon’s empty,
The cupboard is bare....
King Ptolemy’s snoring
Sounds on the breeze
Like the sound of fruit growing
On mulberry trees.”
PEDAGOGUES AND FLOWER-SHOWS
I
TALL cranes with wooden bodices
Stuffed full of shadow odyssies.
They hiss like geese through schoolroom
bars
At the bright flower-show of the stars.
The houses (children’s bricks) float by
On swords of moonshine, cry and sigh.
The schoolmen spray with glittering laughter
This flower-show, budding strangely after.
“Our map-like cheeks are painted red
Where sawdust gods were pierced and bled
“By all this moonshine, and we feel
Blood should be dry,”—Erazureel
Cried; “Blue, pink, yellow planets, bright
Flowers frilled as seas breathe in the night;