As an Old Man

As an old man, Lord Richard was magnificent again,
A gothic effigy stridden from off a tomb, partly unpetrified,
With legs long and thin as a stork’s,
A nose like the bill of a pelican,
And manners that encased his whole being
As the suit of armor he should have worn
To match his physique
Would have encased his body.

As the years passed
And the angers and agonies of the world increased,
Lord Richard beat
A retreat,
Floor by floor,
Until eventually, the few friends — for
The most part relations — whose friendship
He permitted were received
In a large marble bathroom at the top of his castle,
Under the clustered gingerbread turrets and heraldic beasts holding shields.
Here, wearing a correct suit, and over it a white bathrobe with a hood,
While his head was covered by a purple silk biretta
Propped up on his forehead by a wen,
He would dispense coffee, but never tea,
“Because tea,” he would say, as he poured out the coffee,
“Is responsible for all the dreadful scandal
Talked in English drawing rooms.”

A year or two before
the War,
Lord Richard retreated higher than the bathroom.
The gothic effigy strode back to his tomb,
And little now remains of his solitary splendor
Except the wings of dust
Enclosing an untenanted miniature castle
With stained walls
In a wistaria-strangled suburb.