Morning Comes Again

Morning comes again to wake the valleys

And hooters shriek and waggons move again,

And on the hills the heavy clouds hang low,

And warm unwilling thighs crawl slowly

Out of half a million ruffled beds.

Mrs Jones' little shop will soon be open

To catch the kiddies on the way to school,

And the cemetery gates will chuckle to the cemetery-keeper,

And the Labour Exchange will meet the servant with a frown.

Morning comes again, the inevitable morning

Full of the threadbare jokes, the conventional crimes,

Morning comes again, a grey-eyed enemy of glamour,

With the sparrows twittering and gossips full of malice,

With the colourless backyards and the morning papers,

The unemployed scratching for coal on the tips,

The fat little grocer and his praise for Mr Chamberlain,

The vicar and his sharp short cough for Bernard Shaw,

And the colliery-manager's wife behind her pet geranium

Snubbing the whole damn lot!