Classic Poem

Above the grove where Amulette and Unidor make play,
Resting among the tree-tops like a cardboard cottage,
Stands their deathly dwelling — an absurd household it is!
Unidor is already up: it is he who builds
The large chimera-city in whose shadow
Their modest covert is safe from outer jangle
And yet not brutish — like any self-respecting family residence.
Unidor cares little what comes to pass within the city,
Enough that there's a city in the distance to be seen —
To Amulette the thing's great fun, not really boring.
Essentially, however, her tastes are of the simplest.
She furnished her house, for example, in one humorous sweep,
One efficient look-round, one fastidious provision:
Lamps, lamps and lamps! Amulette is by no means talkative,
But as unforgettable as rare her sentences.
She says: " Light fills a room better than tables and chairs —
It furnishes the corners even, and makes no dust,
Unlike the household objects by reputation useful."
But naturally she has a bed, a proper bed,
Thoroughly mattressed, such as everybody has.
It lies just under the roof, and facing downward:
Amulette likes to see always what's going on
In every spot her own — thus there's no second floor
And but one room, though each night when it's bedtime
She says with wilful habitude, " Come, Unidor,
Don't forget that between here downstairs and up-in-bed
There's the same breathless count of steps as yesterday."
And in the morning, Unidor off to city-making,
She lies abed a luxury-long half-hour:
This is her fondest greed, to have the bed all to herself,
And, eyes full awake yet not in focus of thought,
To bubble babies lazily from her mouth
Like idle smoke-puffs fanatically precise.
Indeed, one would not say her mind was on the business
More seriously than any woman's on the cigarette
That gently ushers in the discipline of breakfast.
The babies must get on as best they can —
Poor comic foetuses fast-tumbling to the ground
Through all the dateless turns and spans of infancy.
And there they waste no time in dimpled babble.
Some few linger at the mystery-vine that laughs at masonry,
A leafy spy on indoor secrets, its grape-eyes gleaming —
What are they looking at? What do they taste like?
But Amulette is impatient with fancy, or the colic.
" To the window, children, no dallying, out you go.
Be quick, papa's up there, and waiting for you.
There, there, now — that's a darling — run and help papa!"