LARGESSE TO THE POOR

I had been God’s own time on travel

From stage to stage, guest-house to guest-house,

And at each stage furnished one room

To my own comfort, hoping God knows what,

Most happy when most sure that no condition

Might ever last in God’s own time –

Unless to be death-numb, as I would not.

Yet I was always watchful at my choices

To change the bad at least for a no worse,

And I was strict nowhere to stay long.

In turn from each new home passing

I locked the door and pocketed the key,

Leaving behind goods plainly mine

(Should I return to claim them legally)

Of which I kept particular register –

In nightly rooms and chattels of the occasion

I was, to my own grief, a millionaire.

But now at last, out of God’s firmament,

To break this endless journey –

Homeless to come where that awaits me

Which in my mind’s unwearying discontent

I begged as pilgrim’s due –

To fling my keys as largesse to the poor,

The always travel-hungry God-knows-who,

With, ‘Let them fatten on my industry

Who find perfection and eternity

In might-be-worse, a roof over the head,

And any half-loaf better than no bread,

For which to thank God on their knees nightly.’

[From To Whom Else (1931)]