Sunday Tea-Time
There is a noise of winkles on the air,
Muffins and winkles rattle down the road,
The sluggish road, whose hundred houses stare
One on another in after-dinner gloom.
“Peace, perfect Peace!” wails an accordion,
“Ginger, you’re barmy!” snarls a gramophone.
A most unhappy place, this leafless Grove
In the near suburbs; not a place for tears
Nor for light laughter, for all life is chilled
With the unpurposed toil of many years.
But once—ah, once!—the accordion’s wheezy strains
Led my poor heart to April-smelling lanes.