I am cooped up as a lodger
Where I serve out mental rations
To a proudly backward dodger.
While the two of us are dreaming
Of the canvas and the creases,
Close we sit together, scheming
How to pull an ode to pieces.

Even now in London's gabble
Memory's magic tricks the senses!
Plain I hear the streamlet babble,
Smell the tar on country fences:

Down the road Miss Grey from Marlett
Skirts the fox-frequented thicket,
In her belt a rose of scarlet,
In her eyes the love of cricket.

There's my mother with her ponies
Underneath Sir Toby's beeches,
Pulling up to share with cronies
News of grapes and plums and peaches:
Many a gaffer stops to fumble
At his forelock as she passes,
While the children cease to tumble
Frocks and blouses in the grasses.

Though my body stays with duty
Here to work a sum or rider,
Mother's magnet and her beauty