Toper's Poem
Now I deliver this curse:— What is lost for good, No one shall ever find. Blind shall lead blind. No child shall have food Unless it suck its nurse. All broken things shall be Broken three times three. And this curse I deliver As I snooze in clover With sun hot down on me.
Next I pronounce a blessing:— There shall be a new birth: Bad men be quite forgiven, Happy men packed off to Heaven, Saints be kept on Earth, And all (their sins confessing) Think they can sin much more Virtuously than before.
This blessing I utter As I slump.down in the gutter Before my own front door. Last, I prophesy:— All rough things and all smooth Shall be twinned and wed, And share one single bed, And this is simple truth Plain to half an eye: ' In this turn-table land Crazy curse, and Monstrous benediction And this monstrous pre-diction, One and all, stand.
JOHN HOLLOWAY
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