More Sonnets At Christmas I

To Denis

Again the native hour lets down the

Uncombed and black, but gray the bobbing beard;

Ten years ago His eyes, fierce shuttlecocks,

Pierced the close net of what I failed:

I

The belly-cold, the grave-clout, that

Me dithering in the drift of cordial seas;

Ten years are time enough to be

By mummy Christ, head crammed between his knees.

Suppose I take an arrogant bomber,

By stroke, up to the frazzled sun to

Sun-ghostlings whisper:

Yes, the capital yoke-Remove it and there's not a ghost to

This crucial day, whose decapitate

Languidly winds into the inner ear.