< Page:Pippa Passes 1910.djvu
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64

PIPPA PASSES.


To mavis, merle and throstle,

Bid them their betters jostle
From day and its delights!
But at night, brother howlet, far over the woods,
Toll the world to thy chantry;
Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods
Full complines with gallantry:
Then, owls and bats, cowls and twats,
Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods,
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!

[After she has begun to undress herself,

Now, one thing I should like to really know:
How near I ever might approach all these
I only fancied being, this long day:
—Approach, I mean, so as to touch them so
As to . . . in some way . . . move them—if you please,
Do good or evil to them some slight way.
For instance, if I wind
Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind

[Sitting on the bedside

And broider Ottima's cloak's hem.
Ah, me and my important part with them
This morning's hymn half promised when I rose!
True in some sense or other, I suppose,
Though I passed by them all, and felt no sign.

[As she lies down.

God bless me! I can pray no more to-night.
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right.

All service is the same with God—
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we: there is no last nor first.

[She sleeps.

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