On a Portrait of a Deaf Man

The kind old face, the egg-shaped head,

    The tie, discreetly loud,

The loosely fitting shooting clothes,

    A closely fitting shroud.

He liked old City dining-rooms,

    Potatoes in their skin,

But now his mouth is wide to let

    The London clay come in.

He took me on long silent walks

    In country lanes when young,

He knew the name of ev’ry bird

    But not the song it sung.

And when he could not hear me speak

    He smiled and looked so wise

That now I do not like to think

    Of maggots in his eyes.

He liked the rain-washed Cornish air

    And smell of ploughed-up soil,

He liked a landscape big and bare

    And painted it in oil.

But least of all he liked that place

    Which hangs on Highgate Hill

Of soaked Carrara-covered earth

    For Londoners to fill.

He would have liked to say good-bye,

    Shake hands with many friends,

In Highgate now his finger-bones

    Stick through his finger-ends.

You, God, who treat him thus and thus,

    Say “Save his soul and pray.”

You ask me to believe You and

    I only see decay.