Mortality

The first-class brains of a senior civil servant

    Shiver and shatter and fall

As the steering column of his comfortable Humber

    Batters in the bony wall.

All those delicate little re-adjustments

    “On the one hand, if we proceed

With the ad hoc policy hitherto adapted

    To individual need …

On the other hand, too rigid an arrangement

    Might, of itself, perforce …

I would like to submit for the Minister’s concurrence

    The following alternative course,

Subject to revision and reconsideration

    In the light our experience gains…”

And this had to happen at the corner where the by-pass

    Comes into Egham out of Staines.

That very near miss for an All Souls’ Fellowship

    The recent compensation of a ‘K’—

The first-class brains of a senior civil servant

    Are sweetbread on the road today.