John Fuller - Well Said, Davy

He went to the city and goosed all the girls
With a stall on his finger for whittling the wills
To a clause in his favour and Come to me Sally,
One head in my chambers and one up your alley
And I am as old as my master.

I followed him further and lost all my friends,
The grease still thick on his fistful of pens.
I laced up his mutton and paddled his lake
In the game of Get-off-me and Just-for-my-sake
And I am as old as my master.

I sang in his service a farewell to sorrow
With rolled black stockings, the bone and the marrow.
The Law was a devil to cheat as you pleased
As we knelt on the backs of the city girls’ knees
And I am as old as my master.

So back to the country where birds are squawking,
With possets for pensions and witless talking
Of walloped starvelings and soldiers’ fortunes
From his nodding bench in the smothered orchards
And I am as old as my master.

Age turns the cheek of a buried scandal
In a nightmare of cheese and a quarter of candle.
When the servant is privy he’s good as a guest,
The first to be carved to and last to be pressed
And I am as old as my master.

Country or city, no pleasure can last:
It’s farewell to the future and beckon the past.
Though he that we drink with is sometimes a fool,
A single grey tooth may furnish a smile
And I am as old as my master.

“Well Said, Davy” from Collected Poems, published by Chatto & Windus.

John Fuller

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