Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern British Poetry. 1920.

Harold Monro1879–1932

Every Thing

SINCE man has been articulate,

Mechanical, improvidently wise,

(Servant of Fate),

He has not understood the little cries

And foreign conversations of the small

Delightful creatures that have followed him

Not far behind;

Has failed to hear the sympathetic call

Of Crockery and Cutlery, those kind

Reposeful Teraphim

Of his domestic happiness; the Stool

He sat on, or the Door he entered through:

He has not thanked them, overbearing fool!

What is he coming to?

But you should listen to the talk of these.

Honest they are, and patient they have kept;

Served him without his Thank you or his Please…

I often heard

The gentle Bed, a sigh between each word,

Murmuring, before I slept.

The Candle, as I blew it, cried aloud,

Then bowed,

And in a smoky argument

Into the darkness went.

The Kettle puffed a tentacle of breath:—

“Pooh! I have boiled his water, I don’t know

Why; and he always says I boil too slow.

He never calls me “Sukie, dear,” and oh,

I wonder why I squander my desire

Sitting submissive on his kitchen fire.”

Now the old Copper Basin suddenly

Rattled and tumbled from the shelf,

Bumping and crying: “I can fall by myself;

Without a woman’s hand

To patronize and coax and flatter me,

I understand

The lean and poise of gravitable land.”

It gave a raucous and tumultuous shout,

Twisted itself convulsively about,

Rested upon the floor, and, while I stare,

It stares and grins at me.

The old impetuous Gas above my head

Begins irascibly to flare and fret,

Wheezing into its epileptic jet,

Reminding me I ought to go to bed.

The Rafters creak; an Empty-Cupboard door

Swings open; now a wild Plank of the floor

Breaks from its joist, and leaps behind my foot.

Down from the chimney, half a pound of Soot

Tumbles and lies, and shakes itself again.

The Putty cracks against the window-pane.

A piece of Paper in the basket shoves

Another piece, and toward the bottom moves.

My independent Pencil, while I write,

Breaks at the point: the ruminating Clock

Stirs all its body and begins to rock,

Warning the waiting presence of the Night,

Strikes the dead hour, and tumbles to the plain

Ticking of ordinary work again.

You do well to remind me, and I praise

Your strangely individual foreign ways.

You call me from myself to recognize

Companionship in your unselfish eyes.

I want your dear acquaintances, although

I pass you arrogantly over, throw

Your lovely sounds, and squander them along

My busy days. I’ll do you no more wrong.

Purr for me, Sukie, like a faithful cat.

You, my well trampled Boots, and you, my Hat,

Remain my friends: I feel, though I don’t speak,

Your touch grow kindlier from week to week.

It well becomes our mutual happiness

To go toward the same end more or less.

There is not much dissimilarity,

Not much to choose, I know it well, in fine,

Between the purposes of you and me,

And your eventual Rubbish Heap, and mine.