Classic Poem

It is Saturday morning.
The pork shop is full.
Women and little children
Wait patiently their turns,
Their faces eager and intent,
Seeing in a vision
The Sunday breakfast or the Sunday dinner—
For God's own gentle day
Means home and leisure time,
Fathers and brothers free from work
And something good to eat.

I find them beautiful
These grave, intent, and knowledgable faces
Of women planning meals for hungry men.
Pigs' trotters, sausages, or pork,
Or puddings white and black—
They ponder these things with a solemn look,
For these are vital, meaning more to men
Than pictures, music, books.
And we who sing our songs are less, far less
Than they who keep this excellent, clean shop.

The mistress of the pork shop, buxom, bland,
Is like some wise. benignant deity.
She knows us all, our means and what we buy,
She seems to wish us well, to bless her wares
With kindliness, seeing in vision too
Those Sunday tables spread with her good meat.
Her surly husband has no dreams to fill
His heart but money in the Bank—
Money, more money. He has no idea
Of his high office in this busy shop.
His fat, jowled face, so heavy and morose,
Seems like a malison
Upon his sausages.
But undismayed by him
I mean to buy a pound of them
And tripe to feed my dog.