5 AUGUST 1995, Page 31

Supplication at 5 a.m.

Lie quiet, uneasy one, and say your prayers. Renounce these words, the spawn of vanity which come each day to haul you from your rest.

Forebear to violate the tender morning with willy-nilly poetastering.

Lie fallow, little fellow, and let be.

The pigeons coo, the cuckoo's at his calling. Why desecrate their innocent aubade with unfledged phrase and frantic titivation?

Put by all such factitious philomeling. Turn to the fairer honey-song of sleep. Lady Nepenthe, proffer him your spell.

Derek Stanford