The Lingam and the Yoni
The Lingam and the Yoni
Original Text
A.D. Hope, Collected Poems: 1930-1970 (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1972): 39-41. PR 6015.O55 A17 1972 Robarts Library
1The Lingham and the Yoni
2Are walking hand in glove,
3O are you listening, honey?
4I hear my honey-love.
5The He and She our movers
6What is it they discuss?
7Is it talk of Lovers?
8And do they speak of us?
9I hear their high palaver--
10O tell me what they say!
11The talk goes on for ever
12So deep in love are they;
13So deep in thought, debating
14The suburb and the street;
15Time-payment calculating
16Upon the bedroom suite.
17But ours is long division
18By love's arithmetic,
19Until they make provision
20To buy a box of brick,
21A box that makes her prisoner,
22That he must slave to win
23To do the Lingam honour,
24To keep the Yoni in.
25The mortgage on tomorrow?
26The haemorrhage of rent?
27Against the heart they borrow
28At five or six percent.
29The heart has bought fulfilment
30Which yet their mouths defer
31Until the last instalment
32Upon the furniture.
33No Lingam for her money
34Can make up youth's arrears:
35His layby on the Yoni
36Will not be paid in years.
37And they, who keep this tally,
38They count what they destroy;
39While, in its secret valley
40Withers the herb of joy.
Publication Start Year
1944
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
Form