Complaint

Aged Mother, Mary, even though - when that thing
Leaped hedge in the dark lane (or grabbed your heel
On the attic stair) by smell of man and coarse
Canvas he wore was disguised too well-ill
A scorching and dizzying blue apparition; -

Though that Jack Horner's hedge-scratched pig-splitting arm,
Grubbing his get among your lilies, was a comet
That plunged through the flowery whorl to your womb-root,
And grew a man's face face on its burning head; -

Through no prompt thundercrack, no knave's remorse
Kneeling in the arch of lightning, fisting his guilt,
But the times quiet with God's satisfaction; -

Through you swallowed the honey of a parable,
No forced fistful of meat-and-potato fact -

History's grown gross-bellied, not bright-eyed.