Classic Poem

The tenant absent (Scutcheon Hall is let
To Transatlantic opulence by a lord
Whose peerage pedigree adorns Debrett
With ancestries armorial and historic),
Discreetly I arrive to pace the sward
And ruminate, in unperturbed accord,
With mind appropriately metaphoric.

First let me praise the augustly planned approach
Whose vista, narrowing from wide walls of yew,
Needs nothing but a Queen Anne Period coach
(Plus absence of humanities like dew)
To give the prospect semblance of a print
In elegant autumnal aquatint.
Next let my gaze communicate its paean
Brainward and glorify the Jacobean
Rose-brickwork backed by dense arboreal green,—
The faded pink facade, that nectarine
Of pre-taxation Rent-roll style-stability
Planned for an impermutable nobility

So far, so good. But wherefore its existence
In these dispalaced days? What mortals dare
House their domestic problems in so fair
A setting? . . . Silence . . . Then from foliaged distance
Some Tennysonian ring-dove calmly coos;
A gardener clicks quick shears beyond the yews;
Red Admirals and Painted Ladies bask
And float along the dahlia-brightened border;
Sunshine performs its horticultural task;
And ripened figs harbour the wasp-marauder.