| |
| SHALL I sonnet-sing you about myself? | |
| Do I live in a house you would like to see? | |
| Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf? | |
| “Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?” | |
| |
| Invite the world, as my betters have done? | 5 |
| “Take notice: this building remains on view, | |
| Its suites of reception every one, | |
| Its private apartment and bedroom too; | |
| |
| “For a ticket, apply to the Publisher.” | |
| No: thanking the public, I must decline. | 10 |
| A peep through my window, if folk prefer; | |
| But please you, no foot over threshold of mine! | |
| |
| I have mixed with a crowd and heard free talk | |
| In a foreign land where an earthquake chanced | |
| And a house stood gaping, naught to balk | 15 |
| Man’s eye wherever he gazed or glanced. | |
| |
| The whole of the frontage shaven sheer, | |
| The inside gaped: exposed to day, | |
| Right and wrong and common and queer, | |
| Bare, as the palm of your hand, it lay. | 20 |
| |
| The owner? Oh, he had been crushed, no doubt! | |
| “Odd tables and chairs for a man of wealth! | |
| What a parcel of musty old books about! | |
| He smoked,—no wonder he lost his health! | |
| |
| “I doubt if he bathed before he dressed. | 25 |
| A braisier?—the pagan, he burned perfumes! | |
| You see it is proved, what the neighbors guessed: | |
| His wife and himself had separate rooms.” | |
| |
| Friends, the goodman of the house at least | |
| Kept house to himself till an earthquake came: | 30 |
| ’T is the fall of its frontage permits you feast | |
| On the inside arrangement you praise or blame. | |
| |
| Outside should suffice for evidence: | |
| And whoso desires to penetrate | |
| Deeper, must dive by the spirit sense— | 35 |
| No optics like yours, at any rate! | |
| |
| “Hoity-toity! A street to explore, | |
| Your house the exception! ‘With this same key | |
| Shakespeare unlocked his heart,’ once more!” | |
| Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he! | 40 |
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