Bread and Circuses

Chapter 60: TO A TOWN CRIER

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About This Book

A lyrical collection of short poems ranges from quiet country scenes and childhood memories to urban sketches and religious reflections. The poet renders streams, gardens, market sellers, and domestic interiors in close sensory detail while pairing everyday observation with moral and spiritual meditation. Animal vignettes and playful pieces for children sit alongside elegies, prayers, and ironic portraits of modern life, producing tones of humour, tenderness, and solemnity. Varied forms and concise portraits move between pastoral lanes, London streets, and intimate household moments while attending to time, sorrow, and faith.

TO A TOWN CRIER

“Whiffin, proclaim silence!”—Pickwick

Whiffin, with all thy faults, I love thee still, Thee and thine ancient office and the sweet Metallic peal that quelled the popular heat When party strife ran high in Eatanswill; Who now with quavering eloquence would’st fill, And tidings of a pilfered purse, the street Maddened with motors and the armoured fleet Of base mechanical engines out to kill. Go, thou sole arbiter of Buff and Blue, Time hath prevailed against thee, yield the floor, Toll, on bare sufferance, from door to door, The hooters hold the highway;—as for you, You voice the missing ha’pence of the poor, And they the incomes of the well-to-do.