The Lady Godiva

The Lady Godiva written by Walter de la Mare

Stuff and Nonsense (1927)

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The Lady Godiva Godolphin, of a blood by the centuries blued,
     Flowing back, I believe,
     To Adam and Eve,
had a rooted disdain of the nood.

'Sheep are clad,' she would cry, in their woollies ; the buffalo's hirsute, though rude;
     Apart from their tails,
     Even flounders have scales;
Not a shrimp in the ocean swims nood.

'The ruff has a ruff, though a ruff's not enough, the sea-lion, I'm told, has a hood;
     The lobster a back,
     It's an effort to crack,
And the zebra with stripe is imbrued.

'The oyster is shelled, and the goat has a coat, whether wild, or domestic or Zoo'ed.
      From a bee to a bear -
      You can look, you can stare -
But in nature no creature is nood.'

Pelisses and petticoats, tippets and jupes, she wore by the gross (when she could),
     She would ride in her jig
     In nine fronts and a wig,
And smile when the little boys boo'ed.

Her tables and chairs and her bedsteads - lest even their toes should obtrude -
     She sewed up in chintz
     Trimmed with calico, since,
Thus upholstered, they couldn't look nood.

The Cherubs that graced the Godolphins at rest in the Church of St. Jude,
     She said looked less bloated
     When trousered and coated,
And at all events none remained nood.

When her bath-tub was brought by a handmaid (who at no time desired to intrude),
     She would paddle, splash, plunge -
     In a sark made of sponge,
And not, as do most of us, nood.

Now it's whispered the Lady Godiva was the least little bit of a prude;
     I really can't say,
     She long since passed away,
And what matter if nobody knoowed?

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