Miss Thompson Goes Shopping
In her lone cottage on the downs,
With winds and blizzards and great crowns
Of shining cloud, with wheeling plover
And short grass sweet with the small white clover,
Miss Thompson lived, correct and meek,
A lonely spinster, and every week
On market-day she used to go
Into the little town below,
Tucked in the great downs' hollow bowl
Like pebbles gathered in a shoal.
So, having washed her plates and cup
And banked the kitchen-fire up,
Miss Thompson slipped upstairs and dressed,
Put on her black (her second best),
The bonnet trimmed with rusty plush,
Peeped in the glass with simpering blush,
From camphor-smelling cupboard took
Her thicker jacket off the hook
Because the day might turn to cold.
Then, ready, slipped downstairs and rolled
The hearthrug back; then searched about,
Found her basket, ventured out,
Snecked the door and paused to lock it
And plunge the key in some deep pocket.
Then as she tripped demurely down
The steep descent, the little town
Spread wider till its sprawling street
Enclosed her and her footfalls beat
On the hard stone pavement, and she felt
Those throbbing ecstasies that melt
Through heart and mind, as, happy, free
Her small, prim personality
Merged into the seething strife
Of auction-marts and city life.
[ . . . ]
Martin Armstrong's poem "Miss Thompson Goes Shopping" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1920-1922. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link below: