Day lets go of day; pheasant, partridge, snipe,
Retrieved and then released, are bagged and carried home
To be upended in the larder to grow ripe
Under a hook: flushed flights and plummets will become
The well-kept rows and columns remembered by the gamebook.
The bills are mostly paid, letters mostly opened.
Billiards click and thud; spades beat hearts; pawn takes rook;
Scotch splashes at a tumbler; smoke puffs from its pipe;
And we go on as if nothing much had happened.
When you come to stay, you will be glad to see his room
Quite as it was: the labelled cards and butterflies;
The cups and medals, nets and jars. One might assume
He still was out collecting and any minute might surprise
Us all by bursting in with Fidget and some find.
Here are those letters and that photograph. You look so pretty
Standing there, the house, the cherry trees behind,
And him in uniform: the two of you in bloom,
Blossom fluttering or dropped down like confetti.
