At seven years old the boy was sent to lodge
With a childless family of a sect unknown
To him. There was no way for him to dodge
The strictures of the tribe: he must disown
The cheery current song, the Lambeth Walk,
And sing but hymns upon the good Lord's Day.
Each morning after grace they'd start to talk
About a random Bible text and pray
To Him depicted in the entrance hall:
A single entriangled eye
Brooding above his creatures' rise and fall —
More fall than rise — a world that is awry
And is so still and was so in the past;
Sorry for the commonplace into which I lapsed.