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Five hours, (and who can do it less in?) By haughty Celia spent in dressing; The goddess from her chamber issues, Arrayed in lace, brocades and tissues. Strephon, who found the room was void, And Betty otherwise employed, Stole in, and took a strict survey, Of all the litter as it lay; Whereof, to make the matter clear, An inventory follows here. And first a dirty smock appeared, Beneath the armpits well besmeared. Strephon, the rogue, displayed it wide, And turned it round on every side. On such a point few words are best, And Strephon bids us guess the rest, But swears how damnably the men lie, In calling Celia sweet and cleanly. Now listen while he next produces The various combs for various uses, Filled up with dirt so closely fixt, No brush could force a way betwixt. A paste of composition rare, Sweat, dandruff, powder, lead and hair; A forehead cloth with oil upon’t To smooth the wrinkles on her front; Here alum flower to stop the steams, Exhaled from sour unsavory streams, There night-gloves made of Tripsy’s hide, Bequeathed by Tripsy when she died, With puppy water, beauty’s help Distilled from Tripsy’s darling whelp; Here gallypots and vials placed, Some filled with washes, some with paste, Some with pomatum, paints and slops, And ointments good for scabby chops. Hard by a filthy basin stands, Fouled with the scouring of her hands; The basin takes whatever comes The scrapings of her teeth and gums, A nasty compound of all hues, For here she spits, and here she spews. But oh! it turned poor Strephon’s bowels, When he beheld and smelled the towels, Begummed, bemattered, and beslimed With dirt, and sweat, and earwax grimed. No object Strephon’s eye escapes, Here petticoats in frowzy heaps; Nor be the handkerchiefs forgot All varnished o’er with snuff and snot. The stockings why should I expose, Stained with the marks of stinking toes; Or greasy coifs and pinners reeking, Which Celia slept at least a week in? A pair of tweezers next he found To pluck her brows in arches round, Or hairs that sink the forehead low, Or on her chin like bristles grow. The virtues we must not let pass, Of Celia’s magnifying glass. When frightened Strephon cast his eye on’t It showed visage of a giant. A glass that can to sight disclose, The smallest worm in Celia’s nose, And faithfully direct her nail To squeeze it out from head to tail; For catch it nicely by the head, It must come out alive or dead. Why Strephon will you tell the rest? And must you needs describe the chest? That careless wench! no creature warn her To move it out from yonder corner; But leave it standing full in sight For you to exercise your spite. In vain the workman showed his wit With rings and hinges counterfeit To make it seem in this disguise A cabinet to vulgar eyes; For Strephon ventured to look in, Resolved to go through thick and thin; He lifts the lid, there needs no more, He smelled it all the time before. As from within Pandora’s box, When Epimetheus op’d the locks, A sudden universal crew Of human evils upwards flew; He still was comforted to find That Hope at last remained behind; So Strephon lifting up the lid, To view what in the chest was hid. The vapors flew from out the vent, But Strephon cautious never meant The bottom of the pan to grope, And foul his hands in search of Hope. O never may such vile machine Be once in Celia’s chamber seen! O may she better learn to keep Those “secrets of the hoary deep!” As mutton cutlets, prime of meat, Which though with art you salt and beat As laws of cookery require, And toast them at the clearest fire; If from adown the hopeful chops The fat upon a cinder drops, To stinking smoke it turns the flame Pois’ning the flesh from whence it came, And up exhales a greasy stench, For which you curse the careless wench; So things, which must not be expressed, When plumped into the reeking chest, Send up an excremental smell To taint the parts from whence they fell. The petticoats and gown perfume, Which waft a stink round every room. Thus finishing his grand survey, Disgusted Strephon stole away Repeating in his amorous fits, Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits! But Vengeance, goddess never sleeping Soon punished Strephon for his peeping; His foul imagination links Each Dame he sees with all her stinks: And, if unsavory odors fly, Conceives a lady standing by: All women his description fits, And both ideas jump like wits: But vicious fancy coupled fast, And still appearing in contrast. I pity wretched Strephon blind To all the charms of female kind; Should I the queen of love refuse, Because she rose from stinking ooze? To him that looks behind the scene, Satira’s but some pocky queen. When Celia in her glory shows, If Strephon would but stop his nose (Who now so impiously blasphemes Her ointments, daubs, and paints and creams, Her washes, slops, and every clout, With which he makes so foul a rout) He soon would learn to think like me, And bless his ravished sight to see Such order from confusion sprung, Such gaudy tulips raised from dung.

" Yes !" I answered you last night ; " No !" this morning, Sir, I say ! Colours, seen by candle-light, Will not look the same by day. When the tabors played their best, Lamps above, and laughs below — Love me sounded like a jest, Fit for Yes or fit for No ! Call me false, or call me free — Vow, whatever light may shine, No man on your face shall see Any grief for change on mine. Yet the sin is on us both — Time to dance is not to woo — Wooer light makes fickle troth — Scorn of me recoils on you ! Learn to win a lady's faith Nobly, as the thing is high ; Bravely, as for life and death — With a loyal gravity. Lead her from the festive boards, Point her to the starry skies, Guard her, by your truthful words, Pure from courtship's flatteries. By your truth she shall be true — Ever true, as wives of yore — And her Yes , once said to you, SHALL be Yes for evermore.

Knock knock He has closed his door The garden’s lilies have started to rot So who is the corpse being carried from the house You just knocked on his door And trot trot Trot goes little lady mouse Translated from the French

Ladybird, ladybird, Fly away home, Your house is on fire And your children all gone; All except one And that's little Ann, And she has crept under The warming pan.

Brilliance is a carcass on a snow-white beach. Envy never sleeps. I tell my children truthfully: a long red beard is breaking from the darkness scale. He’s chasing you because you’re new. Because he’s old and sees the town in dirty tones: violet sheep and wine-dark corn. He burns the evening rainbow like a wartime bridge until it’s charred and charlatans topple out of  robin eggs and pox  your happy window by capturing the ledge and chattering like X-rays that crash into your flesh.

Lagos you are dirty Your sand is soiled Your fruits pithy. I am tied to you in a strange land by lines that queue up for foodstuffs you should be eating but ship off to me here where I stand on check out lines and marvel at the cost of one paw paw, just one mango singular, along and apart from you my dirty city. O Lagos, your streets are packed and pollute the air while here in a smug smogged city I choke. Your cord cuts my throat. I am hurt and I cry like my Mami market mothers who go home night after night with the same tin pots. Their food is rotting and ought to be thrown out to the birds and beasts of the forest/ but the lines! O God, these lines are so long and between the houses and the foodstuffs so many palms must be oiled. Nairas are dripping with black gold and yet a beggar man’s lot is the same/ He covers his shame as best he can and little boys skip school. A policeman holds his right hand out a green car passes him dash. And we go dash you dis and we go dash you dat and mek we do business. O Lagos, Lagos, ah say, you don tyah fo dis? Yousef wey you de com fom? Me, I long for the cleanliness of sand roads that breathe long in carefully spaced intervals between cars running wild like mustangs roaming the plains. There are no drivers to speak of. They have vanished over the hills and into gulleys. The seeds have been planted. It is a bitter harvest we reap. The deeds have been done. What has been sown is the flower of our calabashes on the eve of harvest. If only the waters in the Marina If only the waves would whisper louder the secrets of her beaches I would know all/ My harbour is named after a queen whose son’s footprints are planted like a bad seed on the headdress of my children. Lagos, lay your plans carefully. There is no way to stop the rise of bicycles and lorries, hopeful bodies and empty pots. You divert dash for food, care for business. We are not an oasis in a dying desert/ Have we not learnt, o Lagos, the sound of seductive songs and sights that blind us between need and life there must be hope/

Is the woman in the pool of light really reading or just staring at what is written Is the man walking in the soft rain naked or is it the rain that makes his shirt transparent The boy in the iron cot is he asleep or still fingering the springs underneath Did you honestly believe three lives could be complete The bottle of green liquid on the sill is it real The bottle on the peeling sill is it filled with green Or is the liquid an illusion of fullness How summer’s children turn into fish and rain softens men How the elements of summer nights bid us to get down with each other on the unplaned floor And this feels painfully beautiful whether or not it will change the world one drop

Some dreams are like glass or a light beneath the surface of the water. A girl weeps in a garden. A woman turns her head and that is all. We wake up a hundred times and don't know where we are. Asleep at the wheel. Saved by the luck of angels. Everyone touching his lips to something larger, the watermark of some great sorrow. Everyone giving himself away. The way the rose gives up the stem and floats completely, without history. In the end every road leads to water. What is left of a garden is the dream, an alphabet of longing. The shadow of the girl. Perfume.

It should have a woman's name, something to tell us how the green skirt of land has bound its hips. When the day lowers its vermilion tapestry over the west ridge, the water has the sound of leaves shaken in a sack, and the child's voice that you have heard below sings of the sea. By slow movements of the earth's crust, or is it that her hip bones have been shaped by a fault of engineering? Some coquetry cycles this blue edge, a spring ready to come forth to correct love's mathematics. Saturday rises immaculately. The water's jade edge plays against corn-colored picnic baskets, rose and lemon bottles, red balloons, dancers in purple tights, a roan mare out of its field. It is not the moment to think of Bahia and the gray mother with her water explanation. Not far from here, the city, a mass of swift water in its own depression, licks its sores. Still, I would be eased by reasons. Sand dunes in drifts. Lava cuts its own bed at a mountain base. Blindness enters where the light refuses to go. In Loch Lomond, the water flowers with algae and a small life has taken the name of a star. You will hear my star-slow heart empty itself with a light-swift pitch where the water thins to a silence. And the woman who will not be named screams in the birth of her fading away.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.