Good Samaritan
'You don't mind, do you,' he'll say 'but I've spilt my beer
All over your radiogram.' Or, 'I'm frightfully sorry,
But I've put my foot through your lampshade.' When you object
He'll say, with injury, 'I said I was sorry, What more can I do?' You tell him to clear himself out,
He rises to his slow height with dignity, says, 'Well, if that's how you feel . .
I do; I've seen you pass by with averted face When, oh Christ help me, I was being attacked By three Ulster policemen. 'I put myself in his place,' You told a friend, 'and considered how I'd feel Seen in that way.' You saved me embarrassment Or so you said. I never wrecked your flat, The man who did found his bank-account stopped, Your remonstrance with his manager did the trick.
Once I tried to warn you Your girl was being laid by a well known Juan, Only to be rebuffed. Another time You caught them in bed, they said they were keeping warm, And you believed them. 'Don't try to keep Cary From the fate that surely is gathering over his head,' Said Paddy Lynch, said Ed the Ted, Speaking about your wedding, 'I've been invited To the mockery—thirty yards of white curtain lace For a bird that's been stuffed for years.' They'll do it in,
Ed and Paddy and Eamonn, and if I told you You'd put on your pained surprise, do the old act—
'It's all changed now, that was all a long time ago,
I'd be frightfully glad, Philip, if you said no more.'
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