Hard of Hearing
Once in April ways
I heard the cuckoo call.
Among more withering days
Haulms twitched and clicked with heat.
I heard the bumping fall
Of yellow plums. My feet
Drew bickerings from the grass
Like thunder-rain on roofs,
Or clattered arms of brass.
Horses' battering hoofs
Ring no louder now
Than once a distant stream.
The grasshopper's old-hussif row
Dies to remembered dream.
[...]
Alan Porter's poem "Hard of Hearing" was published in the 1920 Wheels anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, click the following links: