Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 3. A SCENE IN LONDON by EDWARD CARPENTER

First Line: BOTH OF THEM DEAF, AND CLOSE ON EIGHTY YEARS OLD
Last Line: AND SHE NODS HER BLIND HEAD AND GIVES A RAUCOUS SCREECH IN ANSWER.
Subject(s): LONDON; LOVE; OLD AGE;

BOTH of them deaf, and close on eighty years old:
She stone blind, and he nearly so;
Side by side crouching over the fire in a little London hovel—six
shillings a week—
Their joints knotted with rheumatism, their faces all day long mute like
statues of all passing expression (no cloud flying by, no gleam of sunshine
there)—lips closed and silent:

But for that now and then taking his pipe out of his mouth,
He puts his face close to her ear and yells just a word into it,
And she nods her blind head and gives a raucous screech in answer.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net