More Sonnets At Christmas I

To Denis Devlin

Again the native hour lets down the locks

Uncombed and black, but gray the bobbing beard;

Ten years ago His eyes, fierce shuttlecocks,

Pierced the close net of what I failed: I feared

The belly-cold, the grave-clout, that betrayed

Me dithering in the drift of cordial seas;

Ten years are time enough to be dismayed

By mummy Christ, head crammed between his knees.

Suppose I take an arrogant bomber, stroke

By stroke, up to the frazzled sun to hear

Sun-ghostlings whisper: Yes, the capital yoke-

Remove it and there's not a ghost to fear

This crucial day, whose decapitate joke

Languidly winds into the inner ear.