Classic Poem

Lady, when you noted a deflection
In my — as a rule — attentive gaze,
You articulated mild objection,
Using a not unfamiliar phrase.
Was I thinking solemn thoughts, if any?
Were my musing integers or naughts?
Wondered you; and offered me a penny
For my thoughts.

Done and done! I get a gentle joyance
Of a calm and melancholy kind
When I learn, in spite of your clairvoyance,
Yours is not the power to read my mind.
Yet, I've thought, with something of a sinking
Feeling that is hard to put in rhyme,
You must guess, must know what I am thinking
All the time.

Lady, when the moon dips like a pearly
Barge afloat upon a silver lake;
When the morn is manifestly early,
I am not infrequently awake.
When, as not infrequently, I'm lying
Waiting for a slumber overslow,
Whither, whither do my thoughts go flying?
Don't you know?

Weights and Measures

Later, when the rosy morn appearing
Ushers in the glory of the day,
And the thought of eggs-and-bacon nearing
Urges me to abdicate the hay;
Whiles that I'm apparelling and laving —
Oh, but I am thoughtful as I dress —
What would be my major thought while shaving?
Can't you guess?

Through the various daily occupations
In which I am needfully immersed,
Which, of all my several cerebrations,
Always is the uppermost and first?
And when day her weary course is ending,
And I finish what I term my task,
Whither, whither do my thoughts go wending?
Can you ask?

Lady, some may deem it far from proper,
Say it is with Freudian meaning fraught,
Thus to tell you, for a paltry copper,
What is my predominating thought.
Lady, can you bear it without shrinking?
Did you want my " thoughts " the other night?
I was thinking — I am always thinking
What to write.