The Spinning-House of the Future

Category: Poetry
"Cada puta hile."--Don Quixote, i. 46.


Without my dinner here I lie,
And all because that proctor
With her stout bull-dogs passed, and I
Mocked her.

For Clara is at Girton too,
That dragon is her tutor,
I threatened once what I would do,
Shoot her.

Her life by Clara's tears was saved,
Wherefore she doth detest me,
And hither hungry and unshaved
Pressed me.

I would that I could have commenced
An action 'gainst that devil,
Like that once brought by Kemp against
Neville.[H]

To her I owe the statute framed
That one against it sinning
Should dwell within the house that's named
Spinning.

Ah me! it runs in sections three:
Who speaks to Girton student
Is fined to teach him how to be
Prudent.

Who loves a Girton girl must do
Twelve months on bread and water,
From a digestive point of view
Slaughter.

Who kisses her commits a crime
By hanging expiated,
And she in tears must spend her time
Gated.

Would that at Oxford I had been,
At Balliol or at Merton,
And then I never should have seen
Girton.

Go down I must, no more shall I
And Clara cross the same bridge;
Still, Granta, art thou her and my
Cambridge.

Some day on this her eyes may light,
This doggerel stiff and jointless,
And she may own it is not quite
Pointless.

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English (Original)