Ten bairns headed to Buckinghamshire,
The watery jaundice and swart nebulae,
With Mummy, now used to her parenting role
Being wielded by men in a truck –
She barely extends chiding wings any more.
One maid high up at the Raven Hotel
Climbing the Balliol Jowett-reared eaves,
Victorian Gothic, Edwardian pleasure,
Where Mummy could never have guided her,
Never so well as a battel-free beak.
Another slip last thought of the strange affront,
The loud, black-fletched boy, like a boisterous brother,
Swelled by Mummy’s intemperate spoiling,
Deprived of feathers and gorged on power,
The scent of the cooing snatch echoing around her.
Mummy screeched her off, did her bit by the rest,
Especially those seven hardy drake sons,
She can feel quite proud as she stretches her neck
Back to non-intervention, and pecks at a butt
She managed to ply from the gardeners’ woe.
The girls may come back with broods of their own –
If they’re up to it – judging by 8 and 11…
In any case, the lads will get strong, greenheaded,
Grow up to be drakely, and plump, and perhaps
Like Daddy, or Uncle, will help Balliol’s rowing.
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