free-verse30 lines

A Ramshackle Room

When the gusts are at play with the trees on the lawn,

And the lights are put out in the vault of the night;

When within all is snug, for the curtains are drawn,

And the fire is aglow and the lamps are alight,

Sometimes, as I muse, from the place where I am

My thoughts fly away to a room near the Cam.

'Tis a ramshackle room, where a man might complain

Of a slope in the ceiling, a rise in the floor;

With a view on a court and a glimpse on a lane,

And no end of cool wind through the chinks of the door;

With a deep-seated chair that I love to recall,

And some groups of young oarsmen in shorts on the wall.

There's a fat jolly jar of tobacco, some pipes -

A meerschaum, a briar, a cherry, a clay -

There's a three-handled cup fit for Audit or Swipes

When the breakfast is done and the plates cleared away.

There's a litter of papers, of books a scratch lot,

Such as Plato, and Dickens, and Liddell and Scott.

And a crone in a bonnet that's more like a rag

From a mist of remembrance steps suddenly out;

And her funny old tongue never ceases to wag

As she tidies the room where she bustles about;

For a man may be strong and a man may be young,

But he can't put a drag on a Bedmaker's tongue.

And, oh, there's a youngster who sits at his ease

In the hope, which is vain, that the tongue may run down,

With his feet on the grate and a book on his knees,

And his cheeks they are smooth and his hair it is brown.

Then I sigh myself back to the place where I am

From that ramshackle room near the banks of the Cam.