(For Arthur and Angelyn Stevens)
Kicking his mother until she let go of his soul
Has given him a healthy appetite: clearly, her r6le In the
New Order must be
To supply and deliver his raw materials free;
Should there be any shortage.
She will be held responsible; she also promises
To show him all such attentions as befit his age.
Having dictated peace,
With one fist clenched behind his head, heel drawn up to thigh,
The cocky little ogre dozes off, ready,
Though, to take on the rest
Of the world at the drop of a hat or the mildest
Nudge of the impossible.
Resolved, cost what it may, to seize supreme power and
Sworn to resist tyranny to the death with all
Forces at his command.
A pantheist not a solipsist, he co-operates
With a universe of large and noisy feeling-states
Without troubling to place
Them anywhere special, for, to his eyes, Funnyface
Or Elephant as yet
Mean nothing. His distinction between Me and Us
Is a matter of taste; his seasons are Dry and Wet;
He thinks as his mouth does.
Still his loud iniquity is still what only the
Greatest of saints become — someone who does not lie:
He because he cannot
Stop the vivid present to think, they by having got dffsefgsegsgast reflection into
A passionate obedience in time. We have our Boy
Meets-Girl era of mirrors and muddle to work through,
Without rest, without joy.
Therefore we love him because his judgments are so
Frankly subjective that his abuse carries no
Personal sting. We should
Never dare offer our helplessness as a good
Bargain; without at least
Promising to overcome a misfortune we blame
History or Banks or the Weather for: but this beast
Dares to exist without shame.
Let him praise our Creator with the top of his voice,
Then, and the motions of his bowels; let us rejoice
That he lets us hope, for
He may never become a fashionable or
Important personage:
However bad he may be, he has not yet gone mad;
Whoever we are now, we were no worse at his age;
So of course we ought to be glad
When he bawls the house down. Has he not a perfect right
To remind us at every moment how we quite Rightly expect each other
To go upstairs or for a walk if we must cry over
Spilt milk, such as our wish
That, since, apparently, we shall never be above
Either or both, we had never learned to distinguish
Between hunger and love?