[10b is probably a fragment, and does not follow from 10a. (AQ)
10c is incorporated here.]
Listen to his talk:
"Pious children, you are good
I know you are good, for we are born to lead
Europe to the Cross again.
What's money?
One heathen child baptised is worth it all."
This man's a millionaire,
Director of three large companies:
Brother a bishop,
Sister a Mother Superior.
"Pride is hate.
Last week
A writer in a paper called me enemy
Of the poor. Wicked fool
Today he walks the streets.
If he had learned
To pray as well as he had learned to write
He'd be a chief editor this night.
Brain power!
It makes me laugh to hear these brainy men
Talk in their pride. A poor child's Hail Mary
Is worth all the poems of all the poets."
Take him away, shadows, till I tell
How this man claimed to be my friend, the friend
Of the spirit of the poet.
He buys pictures,
He hears music.
He must now buy poems - or poets.
A job, I asked him for a job.
He thought and thought
Staring through a window.
Ought he? ought
He risk freeing me?
The gravel grind
Keeps humility in a writer's mind
Lift them up and they become
Impossible, they'll wreck the home
Destroy the family, send Christ back
To His Manger - This he thought
While his mouth made other words.
There was no job that I could do
But would I take a five pound note
A tiny token here in lieu
Of all the lovely things I wrote?
I took the five pound note and laughed
All the way up the street
I thought I had touched something soft
Christ charity so very sweet.
