Felixstowe Or The Last Of Her Order

With one consuming roar along the

The long wave claws and rakes the pebbles

To where its backwash and the next wave mingle,

A mounting arch of water

Against the tide the off-shore breezes blow.

Oh wind and water, this is Felixstowe.

In winter when the sea winds chill and

Than those of summer, all their cold

Full on the gimcrack attic of the

Where I am lodging off the Orwell Road,

I put my final shilling in the

And only make my loneliness completer.

In eighteen ninety-four when we were founded,

Counting our Reverend Mother we were six,

How full of hope we were and prayer-surrounded"The Little Sisters of the Hanging Pyx".

We built our orphanage.

We built our school.

Now only I am left to keep the rule.

Here in the gardens of the Spa

Warm in the whisper of the summer sea,

The cushioned scabious, a deep vermillion,

With white pins stuck in it, looks up at meA sun-lit kingdom touched by

And so my memory of the winter dies.

Across the grass the poplar shades grow

And louder clang the waves along the coast.

The band packs up.

The evening breeze is

And all the world goes home to tea and toast.

I hurry past a cakeshop's tempting

Bound for the red brick twilight of St.

John's."Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising"Here where the white light burns with steady

Safe from the vain world's silly sympathising,

Safe with the love I was born to know,

Safe from the surging of the lonely

My heart finds rest, my heart finds rest in Thee.