The hawker with his tilted cart pulled up beside the fence, <br />And opened out his wondrous mart with startling eloquence; <br />All sorts of toys for girls and boys upon the grass he spread, <br />And dolls, dirt-cheap, that went to sleep when stood upon their head; <br />But our male hearts were beating high for balls and cricket-bats <br />When mother, with the business eye, bought six brown boxer hats. <br /> <br />Six out-of-date extinguishers that fitted us too soon-- <br />Six ugly, upturned canisters--but through the afternoon <br />Our rage and scorn were overborne to see swift fingers flit <br />With pad and trim, around the rim, to make the stove-pipes fit. <br />So Monday morning came, and six "ungrateful young kanats" <br />Went off to school like lunatics in six brown boxer hats. <br /> <br />Then friends at every meeting showed an interest all too rare <br />Or chilled our faltered greetings with the silence of a stare; <br />And comrades who, we thought, were true indulged in vulgar jeers, <br />While willing fists of humorists slambanged them round our ears; <br />But worst of all the social smart from taunting plutocrats-- <br />"Yez pinched them from the hawker's cart, them six brown boxer <br />hats." <br /> <br />(Dress how we will, we feel it still, when friends will stop to chat, <br />To see a broad good-humoured smile is trained upon the hat.) <br />We could not fight with wonted might, for bitter black distress <br />Was in our souls, and on our polls the hateful ugliness. <br />We faced a fine barrage of sticks; and six "broke-up" kanats <br />Went home to meet the storm in six brown battered boxer hats. <br /> <br />John O'Brien <br /><br /><br />John O'Brien<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/six-brown-boxer-hats/
