Mary, what news?–

The lands, as I suppose,

Are drenched with sleet or drifted up with snows,

The east wind strips the slates and starves the blood,

Or thaws and rains make life a sea of mud.

You close each door, draw armchairs nigh the fire,

But draughts sneak in and make you draw ’em nigher–

No matter: still they come: play parlour gales

And whisk about their hyperboreal tails;

Bed’s the one hope, and scarcely tried before

Next morning’s postman thunders at the door.

Meanwhile–if I may gently hint–I wear

But scanty clothes, though all the sun will bear;

A red-hot sun smiles on a hot blue sea

And leaves my bunk to laziness and me:

I read, until a lethargy ensues,

Tales of detectives frowning over clues

And last month’s papers; then the strain’s too strong,

Man wants but little, nor that little long,

The deck-chair in the shadow now appeals,

Until the next hash-hammer rings to meals.

But not alone in climate may I claim

Advantage; while you feel the slings of fame,

Beset at all hours by the shapes of those

Who volunteer your wants to diagnose,Who come with merchandise and go with cheques;

No licensed interrupter haunts these decks,

No vans of wares along these highways clatter.

None urges to insure, buy broom or platter.

There is no sheaf of letters every day,

Regretting, and so forth: no minstrel’s lay:

Proofs, none: reminders, none–while daily you,

Poor creature, tear your hair and struggle through,

And darken paper till you light the lamps,

And the last shilling disappears in stamps.

Nor weightier cares you lack, it is decreed;

The clock won’t go, the chickens will not feed,

The pump, always a huffy ancient, swears,

“Water? if you wants water, try elsewheres”:

The infant wonder, she who must inquire,

Investigates herself into the fire,

The playful snowball whizzes through the pane,

In brief, you try to kick the cat: in vain.

Here no such troubles blot the almanac

For me; no day is marked with red or black:

Events–eventicles–are few, as these,

The sighted school of bobbing porpoises,

The flying-fish when first I saw them leap

And flash like swallows over the blue deep;

The rose-red sunset, or the Sunday duff,

Or–but enumeration cries “Enough.”

There is no Mary in the Atlantic, true,

Nor cellared bookshop to be foraged through.

But as I said, at least I’ve found the sun

And idle times–even this will soon be done;

A corner where no rags-and-bones apply,

Nor postman comes, nor poultry droop and die.