A Little Poem

A happy vicar I might have been 

Two hundred years ago 

To preach upon eternal doom 

And watch my walnuts grow;

 

But born, alas, in an evil time, 

I missed that pleasant haven, 

For the hair has grown on my upper lip 

And the clergy are all clean-shaven.
 

And later still the times were good, 

We were so easy to please, 

We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep 

On the bosoms of the trees.
 

All ignorant we dared to own 

The joys we now dissemble; 

The greenfinch on the apple bough 

Could make my enemies tremble.
 

But girl’s bellies and apricots, 

Roach in a shaded stream, 

Horses, ducks in flight at dawn, 

All these are a dream.
 

It is forbidden to dream again; 

We maim our joys or hide them: 

Horses are made of chromium steel 

And little fat men shall ride them.
 

I am the worm who never turned, 

The eunuch without a harem; 

Between the priest and the commissar 

I walk like Eugene Aram;
 

And the commissar is telling my fortune 

While the radio plays,

But the priest has promised an Austin Seven, 

For Duggie always pays.
 

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls, 

And woke to find it true; 

I wasn’t born for an age like this; 

Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?

 

 

George Orwell

1936