LINES WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY PARSON'S ORCHARD The stock whom Cromwell planted here, Tough seedlings of efficiency, Has walled its acres in, from fear, Founded a generous dynasty. His plea with God, his door ajar The Rector listens to the rooks; Puzzling the scourge of total war Clings to his fishing-rods and books. And so, the Mistress of the House, Her servants mortgaged to the times, Now weeds and plants, her haughty grouse Hushed by the apple-trees and limes. And if the Mistress' back is bent, Her heart is broken from the knowledge That all her psalms and thrift have meant Sweet nothing to her son at College. In raffia gardening-hat, and gloves, Godly as one of Millet's GLEANERS, Stooping, she sighs because she loves The youth despite his misdemeanours. Each week her pleas oppress the lad: "Oh, make Dean Swift your inspiration..." She disremembers Swift went mad Before his genius shocked the nation. Unanswered every one. The boy, Pursuing an evasive Venus, Is amorous, matricidal, coy -- A nineteen-year-old blond Adonis. Impatient of the rustic Church, His bibles all are secular: Should Mary leave him in the lurch He'll follow his integral star, And, poet of the mouldering home, He still will live to sing and see How little reaped where they had sown -- The generous Ascendancy. -- Leslie Daiken (b. 1912)