E. H. W. Meyerstein
Uncle George
In the tense solitude of August nights,
When leafage intercepts the heavenly lights,
My mind revisits one who taught its youth
That, after Nature, books come nearest Truth,
A wrinkled lawyer with a sandy wig,
Whose crowded shelves made his small room seem big.
Upon his claret-pentacled hearth-mat
Rather than purred snored a sleek ginger cat,
Thomas, a fatted chattel of the law,
Most economical of voice and paw,
Whose solitary gesture seemed to be
Preening a whisker most sagaciously.
Upon the mantelpiece a box of spills,
And pewter standish carrying some few quills.
A tin box took the centre table’s sun,
Containing, he would say, work not yet done;
And while that table’s foot, with claw and ball,
Tickled my stocking, gravely from the hall
Below came warning from the cuckoo-clock
That I must now rejoin the social flock,
Chattering with the racket of a forge,
While I sat read to by my Uncle George.
Page(s) 127
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