A dream of Brookes of Sheffield

A funny old fellow met up with last night,
Hell’s ugly, though hard to say why
In vital statistics, because I’d obtrude
On the way I remember my mother’s beau laid

(And yet he looked different – for he was there too,
Why, they knew, or were said to know, one another,
Though I felt it was only ad hoc bores’ rapport).

I felt it as some device for succession,
Mummy palely quiet, I took on the brunt
Of the new man’s smooth wooing; quite as if the thing
Was half-settled but waited my writ.
Not that it was smooth, no, but not inurbane,
As he talked of the country, the pictures and me,
And I answered in loud anecdotes of my father,
Addressed to the rest of the past sold up table.

Was he the conception, the ruddy disquisitant,
Of some unmet man, say, a dear heart’s employer,
Snuffling the trails of his own mink brood?

We boarded a train, without that taking centre,
He showed a new side there, as if the pretence
Required other agents; far without his depth, then
He greeted the lately known passing too late.

Some time after, I thought of the unlettered squire,
As I thought him over, or the cidrous uncle
Of that splendid shilling. I rubbed him away.