The Prodigal Son

THE young man yawned with feigned inconsequence Of manner; boredom exquisite; a fence To hide the quick explosions in his soul. He sucked at his surroundings, and the whole Grim agony of his dull youth returned, The blue fins of his sullen eyelids burned, He could have mouthed a curse, an oath obscene: For horror at the glib familiar scene A clayey lump stuck blistered in his throat. Chrysallic faces, garlic, myosote, And rows of beans and artichokes, a field Interminably patterned, jigged and reeled Along the corridors of memory. “Is childhood happy? dismal fallacy! And yet I am not one of those who think That lilies smell not, orange-flowers stink.” Here had the best hours coolly leaked away Like driblets from a tap, a disarray Of tumbled hispid stars; a clean dry sleep Of stunted senses, where he could not weep For ignorance. And ever shone the moon; The warm sky twinkled like a chopped lagoon. “This world is but a foggy circumstance,” He thought, “where timid mortals must advance To claim their rights and drain what cup of joy It has to offer, now no longer boy I’ll cease to play the rôle of Tantalus, But leave this place, discharge a blunderbuss Against my present drawling mode of life. I’m still too young to bear the plague of wife, And though ’tis true, when all fine things be said, I’m welcome to a partner for my bed, To kiss a gaping throat of flaccid silk; I fear her plump white breasts would hold no milk To suckle babes on, after I had done With kissing at her nipples; one by one Each new-born babe would wither up and die.” He picked his teeth and fetched a windy sigh, Informed his father of his bold resolve, Who told him of the cost it would involve: So, settling up accounts, he bade farewell To all the damned of his domestic hell. Oh wagon-lits and tickets bought from Cook’s, Surpassing all the fairy-tales in books! Warm exhalations, streets with spicy smells And oh, the Poe-like harmonies of bells! Venice and Ruskin and The Deadly Lamps, The pulsing cafés and patchouli’d vamps With sticky flowers in their copper hair, The languid music throbbing on the air! The Watteau fêtes galantes, the bistre-brown Sombrero’d poets, yet without a crown To purchase food; the graceful unwashed hands And flung-proud gestures of these Southern lands! The tiny shiny shoes with pointed tips And carmine-rouged pursed petulance of lips! But all the while the young man’s pockets burned, And all the while he piteously yearned For lucre; many azure nights he’d lain With shirt-front soaked and squelching in champagne And pleasures, money, all are volatile, For after belching Pol-Roger the bile Will wreak revenge. And thus it came about That when his full supply had given out, The harlots would no longer share his bed; Since he could pay no cash, they, laughing, said: “One sucks the orange, throws away the peel.” The young man’s vanity forbade him kneel As penitent before his father’s glare, Before the well-staged patronising stare Of his familiar family—poor things— How they would love to clip his phœnix-wings! So he became a labourer and slept In musty garrets where the grey mice crept, With cobwebs and the gibbering of bats And scuttling cockroaches, and lice, and rats Who dragged their heavy bellies on the floor Thud, thud and thud; the creaking of the door In twilight cavernous, the broken pane Through which the hiss and crackle of the rain Would slant in rivulets across the planks, The thunder tramped, the lightning played his pranks Like a young leopard prancing from the skies Divinely, whilst the tough wind slapped its thighs. Through dismal days he sweated at the plough. And half a crust beneath an apple-bough Became his nourishment, and so he thinned In figure-line; the sweltering east wind And thick-flamed sun had bronzed his body quite.... And often through the oozing hours of night He’d sing a sparkling catch of better times— No longer pedant à propos of rhymes, He’d hum or whistle: “Gosh, she looks immense, You never met a girl like sweet Hortense,” With genuine emotion in his throat. But soon he was reduced to pawning coat And hat; dismissed for superflux of dreams Or bathing on hot afternoons in streams When there was corn to reap, or hay to store In soporific barns; and all the more He dreamt of silken harlots, velvet wine. A tender farmer let him tend the swine. With weighty flanks well caked in slime, a sow Grunted and suckled farrow, whilst a cow Lowed like a mellow snore; a mastiff whined To demonstrate sheer vacancy of mind. “Shall I arise and go? ’tis not too late To gain an entrance to my father’s gate.” The young man shook his head and muttered “No, Nor shall arise, nor to my father go.” He had acquired a preference to dine On scraps amongst the confidential swine.