FALLING PRICES
.
(With grateful acknowledgments to the Commercial Statistician of "The Times.")
Sad is the sight, but not so strange,
When the dead leaf to earth declines:
I have observed this annual change
As one of Autumn's surest signs;
But oh, how very odd it is
To mark the falling prices of commodities.
One had supposed the boom of War
(Still raging with the desperate Turk),
Whose closure seemed past praying for,
Would carry on its hideous work
And swell for years and years
The bulging waistcoats of our profiteers.
But lo! a lot of useful wares
Within my modest range have come;
Trousers, I hear, are sold (in pairs)
At three-fifteen—a paltry sum;
And you can even get
Dittos as low as thirteen pounds the set.
I can afford a further lump
Of sugar in my cocoa—yes,
And cocoa too is on the slump,
Its "second grade" now costs me less;
And green peas (marrowfat)
Are down to fourpence. I can run to that.
And, though my coffers, sadly thinned,
May not command a home-killed ham,
And though the fees for pilchards (tinned)
And eggs (to eat) and strawberry-jam
Are still beyond my means
(The same remark applies to butter-beans);
Yet milk (condensed) and salmon ("pink"),
And arrowroot and pines (preserved)—
All "easier," I am glad to think—
These, and a soul not yet unnerved,
Shall keep me going strong,
Now that the price of boots is not so long.
O. S.