TREATS

BENEATH umbrellas I can see Pink faces sheened with stupidity, With whiskers spirting from them, (days Of boredom, black and sentient rays From other personalities.) And, mourners too, white-bearded seas Walk slowly by them as they come, Sing hymns to the wind’s harmonium. Old men shake hands; their clawing grasp Seems like a door without a clasp— That gapes on slow black emptiness.... Now,—vanished is her cracked black dress, The house grows tall from vacancy, And in the kitchen I take tea While the furry sun creeps out—that raw Life,—sheathes its murderous claw And lets its tongue slink out to lap The silence—(a slow-leaking tap)....

THEY came upon us like a train— A rush, a scream, then gone again! With bodies like a continent Encased in silken seas, they went And came and called and took their tea And patronised the Deity Who copies their munificence With creditable heart and sense. Each face a plaster monument For some belovèd aliment, Whose everlasting sleep they deign To cradle in the Great Inane; Each tongue, a noisy clockwork bell To toll the passing hour that fell; Each hat, an architect’s device For building churches, cheap and nice. I saw the County Families Advance and sit and take their teas; I saw the County gaze askance At my thin insignificance: Small thoughts like frightened fishes glide Beneath their eyes’ pale glassy tide: They said: “Poor thing! we must be nice!” They said: “We know your father!”—twice.

THE carriage brushes through the bright Leaves (violent jets from life to light). Strong polished speed is plunging, heaves Between the showers of bright hot leaves. The window-glasses glaze our faces And jarr them to the very basis,— But they could never put a polish Upon my manners, or abolish My most distinct disinclination For calling on a rich relation! In her house, bulwark built between The life man lives and visions seen,— The sunlight hiccups white as chalk, Grown drunk with emptiness of talk, And silence hisses like a snake, Invertebrate and rattling ache. . . . . Till suddenly, Eternity Drowns all the houses like a sea, And down the street the Trump of Doom Blares,—barely shakes this drawing-room Where raw-edged shadows sting forlorn As dank dark nettles. Down the horn Of her ear-trumpet I convey The news that: “It is Judgment Day!” “Speak louder; I don’t catch, my dear.” I roared: “It is the Trump we hear!” “The What?”—“The TRUMP!” ... “I shall complain— The boy-scouts practising again!”