Poems (Eliot, 1920)/A Cooking Egg

by T. S. Eliot

For other versions of this work, see A Cooking Egg.

A Cooking Egg

En l'an trentiesme de mon aageQue toutes mes hontes j'ay beues . . .

 

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 SidneyAnd 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 meIn 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 multitudesDroop in a hundred A.B.C.'s^[1]

1. i.e. an endemic teashop, found in all parts of London. The Initials signify: Aerated Bread Company, Limited.

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