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The failure
God, who loves experiment,
Took a man's soul which he bent
Just a little; he pushed it here
Pinched it out a trifle there;
Adding this, subtracting that,
Rounding her, and patting flat
Such excrescences as rose
Up to spoil its perfect pose
Till the whole was fashioned fine
Than any soul that with surprise
Ever stared through woman's eyes
Since when he who shaped began
Shaping souls to suit a man.
God, who loves to play with things,
Gave his soul a pair of wings -
Emerald shafted, ruby vaned,
Pink reflections when they planed.
‘Go’ he said, ‘and find some place
In some man of human race.
Body o' man and woman's soul
That should make a perfect whole!
Have a lifetime's liberty;
Live, and then report to me’.
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The dazzling soul planed down to earth
Into one of lowly birth -
Bargeman's son whom student's strength,
(Science frowned!) pulled forth at length -
Malnutrition's model child,
Badly legged and swivel-dialled:
Hormone-halting, hairy browed,
Lacking power to cry aloud.
‘Looks a freak’ the student said,
Looked again, and shook his head.
God, who likes to do his best,
Sent the freak his sleep for rest;
Mother's Welfare Centre tried -
With extract of malt, supplied
Free of charge, directions printed
On the jar, and milk unstinted -
For the freakling's earthly weal.
Science, outraged at the start,
Now relenting, took to heart
This queer male of human race.
And the three, combined, agreed,
‘He shall have his chance, poor Weed!’
Where the brightest sun gleams glum,
Where the gold that gilds the water
Flowing through the canal quarter,
Makes the sodden barge sides glow,
Where the dank moss patches grow,
And the murky smoky greys
Veil the warehouses in haze,
While the tall columnar lights
Dimly shine on drizzly nights
Conscious of their incandescence,
Freak grew up to adolescence.
Boyhood's pangs that sear the soul,
Wild desires that take their toll
Of the pleasure that a child
May amass though swivel-dialled,
Sparks of love that, sidewards bent,
Proved that God's experiment
Was a bitter fate for one
Doing what no man had done,
Feeling what no man had known
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By despair, no longer thrives
On the love of kindred lives.
God, whose justice rules all things,
Looked upon this soul with wings -
Now no longer rubied, pure,
Of itself no longer sure;
Now no longer wholly woman,
Part divine and partly human;
Now a sodden, ugly shape,
God, whose wisdom is profound,
Saw it grovel on the ground,
Stamped upon it, squashed it flat,
Thanked himself, and said ‘That's that!’
Jagger-biblioteek, Universiteit van Kaapstad |
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