THE OTHER AUTHOR: DIVISIONS ON A VICTORIAN THEME
A Sepoy servant, Nate, the natural son
Of my Calcutta stepfather, probably
Tended my seasickness, for I was but eight
On the long passage to England-Starboard Home.
When we called at St. Helena, he took me
A crooked way over brown hills and boulders
Till we reached a garden where we saw a man
Walking. "There he is," my black Nate said, "see him?
Buonaparte, that is he! Three pigs in a day he eats
And all the children he can lay hands on too."
Thirty years hence, to the day, I wrote the first
"Novel without a Hero." Then I was nine:
Dear Mother, I am at Margate. This has been
Neptune Day with me. I call it so because
I go into the water and am like Neptune.
The sea was ever my friend, and shall be so.
Everyone here is very kind and
will
give
A great many cakes, a great many kisses,
But I do not let Charles kiss me. Those I take
Only from the ladies. And I learn such poems
