what's o'clock
13
He has but to tap a sheepskin to experience kingdoms,
And circumstance drips from his fingers like dust.
An habituated eye sees much through a pin-prick,
And are not his observations folio wide?
He eats the centuries
And lives a new life every twenty-four hours,
So lengthening his own to an incalculable figure.
If you think you see only an old man mouldering between four walls,
You are greatly mistaken.
Minerva over the door could tell you better
If her stone face would speak.
Talk to him and he will not hear you;
Write a book and he knows you better than you know yourself.
Draw the curtains, then, and bring in tea, with plenty of buttered scones.
Since neither the old gentleman nor Minerva will speak to us,
I think we had best ignore them and go on as we are.
And circumstance drips from his fingers like dust.
An habituated eye sees much through a pin-prick,
And are not his observations folio wide?
He eats the centuries
And lives a new life every twenty-four hours,
So lengthening his own to an incalculable figure.
If you think you see only an old man mouldering between four walls,
You are greatly mistaken.
Minerva over the door could tell you better
If her stone face would speak.
Talk to him and he will not hear you;
Write a book and he knows you better than you know yourself.
Draw the curtains, then, and bring in tea, with plenty of buttered scones.
Since neither the old gentleman nor Minerva will speak to us,
I think we had best ignore them and go on as we are.
