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 jar 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….
Then suddenly Eternity
Drowns all the houses like a sea
And down the street the Trump of Doom
Blares madly – shakes the 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.”
(Dame Edith Sitwell)
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Based on Topics: Life Poems, Money & Wealth Poems, Media & News PoemsBased on Keywords: bulwark, drawing-room, hisses, abolish, practising, blares, hiccups, boy-scouts, invertebrate, raw-edged