Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FRESH START, by ANNA WICKHAM


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FRESH START, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O give me back my rigorous english sunday
Last Line: I'll write chaste sonnets of imagined loves.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hepburn, Patrick, Mrs.
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


O give me back my rigorous English Sunday
And my well-ordered house, with stockings washed on Monday.
Let the House-Lord, that kindly decorous fellow,
Leave happy for his Law at ten, with a well-furled umbrella.
Let my young sons observe my strict house rules,
Imbibing Tory principles, at Tory schools.

Two years now I have sat beneath a curse
And in a fury poured out frenzied verse.
Such verse as held no beauty and no good
And was at best new curious vermin-food.

My dog is rabid, and my cat is lean,
And not a pot in all this place is clean.
The locks have fallen from my hingeless doors,
And holes are in my credit and my floors.

There is no solace for me, but in sooth
To have said baldly certain ugly truth.
Such scavenger's work was never yet a woman's,
My wardrobe's more a scarecrow's than a human's.

I'm off to the House-goddess for her gift.
"O give me Circumspection, Temperance, Thrift;
Take thou this lust of words, this fevered itching,
And give me faith in darning, joy of stitching!"

When this hot blood is cooled by kindly Time
Controlled and schooled, I'll come again to Rhyme.
Sure of my methods, morals and my gloves,
I'll write chaste sonnets of imagined Loves.





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