Classic Poem

I AT A DINNER PARTY

— Jean, let me introduce Sir Robert Frazer,
But once in Wiltshire years ago you met,
Don't I remember?
— Yes, I can't forget ...
Our Hostess acts the imbecile, it pays her.
— You always were so horrid about people.
— And you were always bringing out their best.
— Bob, do behave like any other guest ...
Do you remember Wagdon Prior steeple
And how it rises out of Salisbury plain?
— I dislike steeples seen at any angle,
— How strange that we should only meet to wrangle.
— Frankly, I hope we never shall again.
— But do say something in this awful lull,
You always had the gift of being dull.

II IN A CAMBRIDGE GARDEN

— Bill, take a cushion on the ground, that's better!
Just how you used to lie ten years ago.
— Tell me one thing I have a right to know,
Why did you never answer my last letter?
— I used to wish when I was seventeen
(You can't chew grass and make a noble face)
That I could find that fairy-story place
Where there is everything that might have been.
That treasured kitten grown Eternal Cat,
The plays we meant to act in, you and I,
Even the tears there was never time to cry,
Do you think Heaven was really always that,
Not harps and halos?
— Clare, I know it well
And go there often, but its name is Hell.