Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Thomas Common - 1917.djvu/372

 Hail! hail! to that whale, fishlike,

If it thus for its guest's convenience

Made things nice!- (you well know,

Surely, my learned allusion?)

Hail to its belly,

If it had e'er

A such loveliest oasis-belly

As this is: though however I doubt about it,

-With this come I out of Old-Europe,

That doubt'th more eagerly than do any

Elderly married woman.

May the Lord improve it!

Amen!

Here do I sit now,

In this the small oasis,

Like a date indeed,

Brown, quite sweet, gold-suppurating,

For rounded mouth of maiden longing,

But yet still more for youthful, maidlike,

Ice-cold and snow-white and incisory

Front teeth: and for such assuredly,

Pine the hearts all of ardent date-fruits. Selah.

To the there-named south-fruits now,

Similar, all-too-similar,

Do I lie here; by little

Flying insects

Round-sniffled and round-played,

And also by yet littler,

Foolisher, and peccabler

Wishes and phantasies,-