IV
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t school it was just dull as that dull High Street.They taught me pothooks--I wanted to be alone, although I was so little,Alone, away from the rain, the dingyness, the dullness,Away somewhere else-- The town was dull;The front was dull;The High Street and the other street were dull--And there was a public park, I remember,And that was damned dull too,With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick,And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on,And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in,And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones,And the swings, which were for "Board-School children,"And its gravel paths. And on Sundays they rang the bells,From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches.They had the Salvation Army.I was taken to a High Church;The parson's name was Mowbray,"Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it--"That's what I heard people say. I took a little black bookTo that cold, grey, damp, smelling church,And I had to sit on a hard bench,Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms,And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed--And then there was nothing to doExcept to play trains with the hymn-books. There was nothing to see,Nothing to do,Nothing to play with,Except that in an empty room upstairsThere was a large tin boxContaining reproductions of the Magna Charta,Of the Declaration of IndependenceAnd of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada.There were also several packets of stamps,Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots,Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak,Indians and Men-of-warFrom the United States,And the green and red portraitsOf King FrancobolloOf Italy. V I don't believe in God.I do believe in avenging godsWho plague us for sins we never sinnedBut who avenge us. That's why I'll never have a child,Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-boxFor the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours,Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.
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