Senex

Oh would I could subdue the flesh

    Which sadly troubles me!

And then perhaps could view the flesh

As though I never knew the flesh

    And merry misery.

To see the golden hiking girl

    With wind about her hair,

The tennis-playing, biking girl,

The wholly-to-my-liking girl,

    To see and not to care.

At sundown on my tricycle

    I tour the Borough’s edge,

And icy as an icicle

See bicycle by bicycle

    Stacked waiting in the hedge.

Get down from me! I thunder there,

    You spaniels! Shut your jaws!

Your teeth are stuffed with underwear,

Suspenders torn asunder there

    And buttocks in your paws!

Oh whip the dogs away my Lord,

    They make me ill with lust.

Bend bare knees down to pray, my Lord,

Teach sulky lips to say, my Lord,

    That flaxen hair is dust.