W H Auden

I Have No Gun,But I Can Spit

Some thirty inches from my nose The frontier of my Person goes, And all the untilled air between Is private pagus or demesne. Stranger, unless with bedroom eyes I beckon you to fraternize, Beware of rudely crossing it: I have no gun, but I can spit. pagus - a Latin word meaning the smallest form of settlement demesne - land attached to a manor, held directly by the owner rather than by a tenant