Lapsus Calami (Aug 1891)/The Poet's Prayer

←

The Poet's Prayer

→

sister projects: Wikidata item

A roundel. First printed in The Cambridge Review, 4 June 1891, and then included as the first of "Two Roundels" in the third and subsequent editions of Lapsus Calami.

1789872Lapsus Calami — The Poet's PrayerJames Kenneth Stephen

NOVI LAPSUS.

APRIL—JUNE, 1891.

DE LAPSIBUS PRIORIBUS.

TWO ROUNDELS.

i. The Poet's Prayer.

To buy my book—if you will be so kind— Is all I ask of you; and not to lookWhat fruit lies hid beneath the azure rind:To buy my book.

This for her hymn-book Rosalind mistook, When worshipping with yokel, maid, and hind;Neaera read it in a flowery nook,And gave her loose curls to the wanton wind.For this her grammar Sylvia once forsook, Of you I only ask—you will not mind?—To buy my book.