Margaret Seaton
Ponder's End
(Song for a Gigue)
Like a creditor, I
beside your door
might come to die
one day at four,
that bodiless hour
when the petulant day
snatches our wit
and leaves us clay.
Down you would sit
to take your tea
with never a look
at what was me ;
though the cream turned sour,
the toast went cold,
the weeping tea
grew weak and old
and the clamant light,
thin as a whip,
accused your book
you would read and sip ;
you would be right :
you did not borrow ;
we do not lend
usuriously to a friend ;
lightly we give
and then we lie,
plumaged in sorrow,
down to die.
Oh rare black swan
singing—sing on—
"How can we live
without our dole?
We need a meed
of currency.
How can we live,
or you or me,
with a bloody great hole
where the heart should be?"
Page(s) 30
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