When the day’s drinking’s done,
It is good to spy the lighted windows of
The sweetly-smoking cottage from afar,
And with eccentric gait and oath-edged course
Thread mud-clogged lanes to your elusive door.
When the day’s drinking’s done,
It is good to hunker by the softly-spitting fire,
Hear the vespers-call drift through the drifting mist,
Slap one hand over one eye and attempt
To concentrate on a volume of Baudelaire.
When the day’s drinking’s done,
It is good to formulate new interests:
Order books or opera, and with visionary hunger
Elaborate the conscious renaissance
The drinkless day mysteriously forebore.
When the day’s drinking’s done,
It is good to gain the favourite, sunken chair
And let slumber settle, fluttering, with a sweet renewal
While your mouth hangs open to the glaring light,
The kebab cools on the fiery abdomen
And the slipped glass falls tinkling to the floor.
Yes, when the day’s drinking’s done,
It is good to see your threshold rise to meet you;
Share slapstick with the joshing step,
Put your legs up, as with a wholesome thump
Your head clunks on the cosy welcome-mat
And your breath shocks the puzzled, patient hound,
And when the day’s drinking’s done,
Choirs of angels hymn the returned provider,
Singing of the happy toil, the tasks
Rejoined in the fields till set of sun,
And the simple, proper manhood of the man
When, finally, his day’s drinking’s done.
Random Descent 