Hush! nobody cares: I have just fallen downstairs.
So ravaged and plundered my heart lies that I hear
scary noises ringing, with my ear down to the ground:
anarchy's so starving it'll swallow down your spirits straight off;
seems like a maze through which you will be led to misery.
Obnoxious laws are nothing, absolutely nothing
half so much worth doing as simply messing about
in life where I take warmth from the company that I keep
with cronies in this concrete jungle. What is this I hear,
like an incorrigible music of screams and laughter?
like a grim address from the scaffold as grief is nearby:
pluck thy spirits, be not afraid to do thine office; my neck's short;
take heed so thou strike not awry, for saving of thine honesty?
Anarchy adds to our perils. Freaks have no cares; what-
ever happens in curt societies, they must get theirs.
Just after my bath in burning sweat, I fall into a sleep,
dreaming as if at the border of crisis, grace appeared
(unmindful of risk and profit: that's an economist's job)
‘beautiful and terrible as an army arrayed for the battle'.
So, trash all the murky troubles and come up smiling.
It doesn't matter what I do as long as I don't praise
the gratitude with which my countrymen sing: of course,
we are with the breezes, the sunshine and refreshing rain;
what if our wingèd hours of bliss are few like angel-visits?
A layman's eyes I need to look for grace everywhere.
There are always moments when we mortals realise:
anarchy is alluring at night, by morning turns brutal;
and its army they need to fight out on this knife's edge.
Oops! I forgot to report: not too many are heart-broken
over the fleeting dearth of valour or something like it.
So far away from quarrels and narcotic whirls, I sing:
somewhere across the clouds way up high in the sky,
grace there is like the moon I heard of once in a lullaby;
tell how long we shall walow in the mud of this pigsty.
I know only a few stubborn blokes will blunder on.