Cleft in the narrow gulf of gusty grief
My soul is like a cricket on a leaf,
Who peering down amongst the autumn grasses
Peevishly wonders where he left his glasses.
Old is the cricket; lame; he cannot hop
As once he did in Old King Willow’s shop.
There, often, on the Hearth the Cloister sat,
Young crickets gathered round him on the mat.
Happy the Hearth–the Hearth of his beginnings,
Where first he played his modest maiden innings!
Old is the cricket; blind; he cannot see
That X Y Z must follow A B C.
Old, with a slow, rheumatic, autumn clicking–
Voice harsh, green armour tarnished, knee-joints sticking.
Old, too, the crinkled leaf of sycamore
Where mourns his wife, knowing he’ll never kick her more.
He sighs, he sobs, his tear-drops fall to grass,
And over them the mists of autumn pass.
Now, through the falling apple-rusty sun
He sees dead years, and knows that laurels won
On Willow’s Hearth can nevermore be flaunted.
What use the chaplet on a brow so haunted?
My soul is like a cricket on a leaf,
Cleft in the narrow gulf of gusty grief.